The Nikkei 225 peaked at the end of 1989 before Japan’s market crash.
The index reached its all-time intraday high of 38,957.44 on December 29, 1989. That peak followed years of rapidly rising Japanese share and land prices, easy credit, and strong optimism about Japan’s economic power.
After the bubble began to deflate, Japanese equities fell for years. The Nikkei’s decline became a central part of Japan’s “Lost Decades,” a period marked by weak growth, banking problems, deflationary pressure, and repeated efforts to repair balance sheets. The index did not return to its 1989 peak for more than three decades.
TOPIX is another important Japanese benchmark, but the Nikkei 225 is the index most closely associated with the 1989 peak in popular accounts of the crash. The Nikkei is price-weighted and consists of 225 major companies listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange.