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The story
On the 22nd, the Nikkei Stock Average fell 1,713.40 yen from the previous day to close at 62,907.84, dropping below the 63,000 line. This marks the first time the closing price has fallen below 63,000 in roughly three months, since July 30’s close of 61,867.43. A slide by major U.S. chipmaking-equipment maker Lam Research in after-hours trading, combined with alarm over a vulnerability discovered in PHP — the programming language used by roughly 70% of the world’s websites — intensified selling in AI- and semiconductor-related stocks. The yen’s strengthening to around 157.20 per dollar also weighed on the market. On 5ch threads, comments crossed paths: new-NISA investors still making monthly contributions worried about unrealized losses, some fretted over an AI bubble bursting, and others recalled the slow, grinding decline of the 2008 Lehman Shock.
Nikkei falls sharply by 1,713 yen, closing below 63,000 for the first time in about 3 months — closing bell on the 22nd
In afternoon trading on the 22nd, the Nikkei Stock Average fell sharply, down 1,713.40 yen from the previous day to 62,907.84. The TOPIX (Tokyo Stock Price Index) also declined, down 46.23 points to 3,997.50. The Nikkei closed at its low for the day, marking its first close below 63,000 since July 30 (61,867.43). Buying and selling crossed in the morning session, with the index briefly turning positive, but after U.S. semiconductor-equipment maker Lam Research fell in after-hours U.S. trading, selling pressure intensified on AI- and semiconductor-related stocks in Tokyo as well. Concerns were also raised over the impact of a serious vulnerability found in PHP, the programming language used by roughly 70% of the world’s websites. The yen strengthening from its morning level to around 157.20 to the dollar added further pressure.
Trading volume on the Tokyo Stock Exchange Prime Market was 2.19167 billion shares, with a trading value of 7.0569 trillion yen. Among traded issues, 684 rose, 821 fell, and 48 were unchanged.
Source: finance.yahoo.co.jp / Original article here
What people said
The main line's fine though?
Honestly, I think the bottom's still a long way down.
You never know what's coming. Any foreign investor with normal nerves would be closing out positions right about now.
Now's the time to buy, hang in there.
You think you can beat AI-driven hacking decades from now? Physical gold is the only thing you can actually trust.
That's what you'd think, right? Actually, most people haven't finished their contributions yet, so a crash right now actually helps.
The 10-year bond is crashing too. This might be the peak. Only 5 days left until the deadline.
Too brutal.
That's suicide-level rough.
When stocks get sold off, currency hedging flows push the yen stronger.
Same as civil engineering and construction stocks after the 2011 (3/11) earthquake — AI stocks are just hunting grounds for speculators right now.
Great earnings are already priced in, so even a quarter with 'record-high profit' will still trigger a sell-off if it doesn't exceed the market's already sky-high expectations.
Also, even if one company's earnings are good, if any major AI-related stock shows a hint of weakness, the whole AI sector gets dragged down with it.
Probably because there are concerns over capital spending.
It wasn't fake though. Stocks soared and wages actually went up a bit too. If it weren't for the cyberattack, we'd have been riding high through year-end.
In a few years it'll get cracked and the whole system will collapse. AI's power is terrifying — it's seen as more dangerous than nuclear weapons.
Mine's just monthly contributions, totally fine.
They'll probably crash it right when everyone's NISA gains peak. Straight from the height of good times into hell. For an AI, that's child's play. The moment your money's just digital numbers, it's nothing but a pie in the sky.
That's just wishful thinking on your part. Plenty of people cash out right at the peak anyway, and since everyone's investing on a different timeline, there's no way to make everyone lose at once — some people aren't cashing out for another 30 years.
Right, and it just kept going, and that's where we are now. You don't actually have money, do you? That's basically how it works.
I guess it'll give back whatever the semiconductor rally added. The Nikkei gained something like 30,000 points off that, right?
Background and key points of this discussion
The Nikkei’s pullback is largely a reaction to overheated expectations around AI and semiconductor stocks. The trigger — a sharp after-hours drop by U.S. chipmaking-equipment giant Lam Research — spread caution across the market about the sustainability of AI-related investment. The other factor, the PHP vulnerability, was taken seriously precisely because PHP is used by roughly 70% of the world’s websites, meaning exploitation could potentially affect the internet as a whole. It’s easy to overlook that Japan’s new NISA tax-free investment program only launched in 2024, so most participants are still just a few years into their contribution period — even with unrealized losses now, that doesn’t necessarily mean they’ve fallen far below their average purchase cost. Some comments in the thread tied the market plunge to an evaluation of the government in power at the time, but this article excludes replies containing political commentary.
*This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (News Flash+) thread “[Breaking] Nikkei falls sharply by 1,713 yen, closing below 63,000 for the first time in about 3 months.”
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