Two railway & brokerage stock bubbles in the Tokyo バブル 時代

 

The Sep '85 Plaza Accord which obligated major central banks to sell US$ and buy ¥ poured gas on the flames of speculation ignited by the Japanese base rate having been lowered from 9% in 1980 down to 5% in 1985 which was further curtailed to 3% after this agreement, causing corporates, individuals & banks to funnel a tidal wave of money( enlarged by warrants & convertibles issued in London) into speculation on stocks & land.

The meteoric rise in land prices engendered by this gold rush (tripling in the capital between 1983 to 1987) hoisted the stocks of major land-owning listed companies like Tokyu(above), lifting it from a '82 low of  ¥196 to  ¥500 just before the Plaza agreement to  ¥637 shortly after. This proved to be just the beginning as the price rose past ¥1,000 the next year & sailed over ¥2,000 the year after that. A concerted drive by gangsters in cahoots with major securities firm Nomura drove the price finally(but briefly) over ¥3,000, peaking just a fortnight before the Nikkei index. 

Hakone Tozan stock however, had already peaked several months earlier, slightly exceeding its late 1987 summit.

Nomura Securities, which in '87 topped the profits league ahead of Toyota & which made most of these on fixed, high commissions promoting stocks-du-jour like Tokyu to its corporate & individual clients, had already peaked at an astronomical ¥5,990 in the same year that it trumped Toyota, a long 44 months before Tokyu & the Nikkei itself. 

Its affiliate Sanyo Securities would famously go under days before another infamous Japanese broker Yamaichi, less than 8 years after the bubble burst.