The Nikkei 225 reached Japan’s major bubble-era peak on December 29, 1989.
The index closed at 38,915.87, marking the high point of Japan’s late-1980s asset-price bubble. Extremely high land and share valuations, easy credit, rapid lending, and strong confidence helped drive the boom. When monetary conditions tightened and the bubble burst, Japanese equities entered a prolonged decline.
The Nikkei’s fall was connected to a broader financial and economic episode rather than a single day alone. Banks faced bad loans, property values weakened, and economic growth slowed. Japan later experienced a long period often called the “Lost Decades,” although the timing and causes of that period are discussed by economists.
The Nikkei 225 is a price-weighted index of 225 major companies listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange. TOPIX is another important Japanese index, but it measures a broader group of companies and is not the index associated with the famous December 1989 peak.