…in 1989, the land under Tokyo’s Imperial Palace was worth more than all of California.
Photographer: Tomohiro Ohsumi/Bloomberg
The best bull market in history was not the dotcoms in the nineties, nor the energy stocks in the aughts, nor the Dow from 1982 through 2000. It was the rise of markets in Japan from 1950 until 1989, a nearly four-decade stretch when the Nikkei delivered a 21% annualized (or an astonishing 157,015% compounded with dividends reinvested). And that was in Yen terms.
In dollars, an investor did even better, generating 24% per year or 399,671% total. $10,000 invested in those dark days in Japan after the war would have become near $50 million by 1990 — no typo there. You can see why, in 1989, the land under Tokyo’s Imperial Palace was worth more than all of California. You could have done almost as well as Warren Buffett by just buying Japan and holding for 40 years.
Of course, the result was one of the largest bubbles in history — one which, arguably is still unwinding today.
