Which stock exchange was at the center of Japan’s 1989 asset-price bubble collapse?

The Tokyo Stock Exchange was at the center of Japan’s 1989 asset-price bubble collapse.

Japan’s stock and property boom reached a peak at the end of the 1980s. The Nikkei 225 reached its historical high of 38,915.87 on December 29, 1989, on the Tokyo Stock Exchange. After the peak, share and land prices fell for years, damaging banks, companies, and households.

Easy credit, rapid lending, rising property values, and optimistic expectations had helped inflate the bubble. Japanese banks held substantial exposure to property and corporate borrowers, so falling collateral values weakened their balance sheets. The resulting period of slow growth and financial repair is often called Japan’s “Lost Decade,” although economic weakness extended beyond the 1990s.

The event is sometimes described simply as a stock-market crash, but it was a combined equity and real-estate collapse. The Nikkei did not immediately return to its 1989 peak. The Tokyo Stock Exchange is Japan’s principal securities market and is now part of Japan Exchange Group, whose other major market includes the Osaka Exchange.