Japan’s Nikkei 225 index marked the peak of the country’s late-1980s asset-price bubble in December 1989.
The Nikkei reached an intraday record of 38,957.44 on December 29, 1989. A property and stock-market boom had pushed Japanese asset prices to extraordinary levels, supported by credit growth and optimistic expectations. After the bubble burst, share prices and land values fell for years, helping produce Japan’s prolonged economic stagnation of the 1990s.
The Nikkei’s 1989 peak is often used as a benchmark for the crash and its aftermath, although the decline was not a single-day collapse like Black Monday. The index did not regain that record for more than three decades. Japan’s experience also illustrates why a market crash can have a long economic legacy when falling asset prices damage banks, borrowers, and business investment.