The Nikkei 225 peaked on December 29, 1989, before Japan’s market collapse.
The index closed at 38,915.87 on that date, marking the high point of Japan’s late-1980s asset-price bubble. Extremely high land and share prices, abundant credit, and optimistic expectations had pushed valuations to extraordinary levels.
After the peak, Japanese equities entered a prolonged decline. The Nikkei fell below 20,000 in 1990 and continued weakening into the following decade. The collapse was closely connected to the bursting of Japan’s real-estate and credit bubble, which damaged banks, companies, and household balance sheets.
The Nikkei 225 is often confused with TOPIX, another important Japanese stock index. The Nikkei is a price-weighted index of 225 prominent companies, while TOPIX tracks companies listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange’s main market using a different weighting method.