© Reuters. FILE PHOTO: A man looks at an electronic screen displaying Japan’s Nikkei share average outside a brokerage in Tokyo, Japan February 20, 2024. REUTERS/Kim Kyung-Hoon/File Photo
By Rocky Swift
TOKYO (Reuters) – Japan’s benchmark stock index is nearing its all-time high of 38,957.44 set on Dec. 29, 1989 in the heady days of the country’s bubble economy. But like Japan itself, the Nikkei is very different from 34 years ago – especially in terms of the companies that comprise it and what they are worth.
HISTORY
The Nikkei Stock Average is a price-weighted index of 225 large, widely traded Japanese companies and the most popular benchmark for Japan’s stock market.
It was started in 1950, shortly after Japan’s stock market reopened after World War Two. Its name is a contraction of “Nihon Keizai,” which means “Japan Economy” and comes from the name of the newspaper company which compiles it, Nikkei Inc.
COMPOSITION
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