The Nikkei 225 reached its all-time peak of 38,957.44 on December 29, 1989.
The peak marked the high point of Japan’s late-1980s asset-price bubble. Easy credit, rising land values, strong corporate optimism, and heavy investment helped push Japanese share and property prices to extraordinary levels. The Nikkei’s rise made it one of the world’s most watched market stories.
After the bubble burst, Japanese equities entered a prolonged decline. The index fell below 15,000 by August 1992, and Japan experienced a long period of weak growth, banking problems, and deflation often called the Lost Decades.
The Nikkei 225 is a price-weighted index of 225 major companies listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange. It is often confused with TOPIX, which uses a different construction and covers a broader group of companies. The 1989 peak remained unbroken for decades before the index finally surpassed it in 2024.