Photo/Illutration The Nikkei 225 index surges above 39,000 on the afternoon of Feb. 22. (Tetsuro Takehana)

The Nikkei 225 index closed at 39,098.68 on Feb. 22, shattering the record set in late December 1989 during the asset-inflated bubble economy.

At one point in the afternoon, the benchmark index hit 39,156,97, an all-time high, before cooling off slightly before the end of trading.

Buy orders focused on semiconductor stocks, which have been a major contributor to recent surges in the Nikkei index, pushed up the average in morning trading on Feb. 22.

In the United States on Feb. 21, major semiconductor manufacturer Nvidia Corp. announced a 3.7-fold year-on-year increase in sales for the November to January quarter, well above market expectations.

It also posted $12.3 billion (about 1.8 trillion yen) in net profits for the quarter, an 8.7-fold increase.

The earnings helped to push up the Nikkei index.

During the asset-inflated bubble economy of the late 1980s, stock and real estate prices soared in Japan. But the bubble burst, and in 1992, the Nikkei index fell below 20,000 points.

It plunged to a record low of 7,162 during the global financial crisis of 2008 brought on by the collapse of U.S. investment bank Lehman Brothers.

The Abenomics package of economic measures under Prime Minister Shinzo Abe from 2012 helped to turn around the long stagnant Nikkei index.

The Bank of Japan’s ultra-loose monetary policy for more than a decade led to a weak yen that helped to bolster exports of Japanese companies.

In February 2021, the Nikkei index exceeded 30,000 points for the first time in 30 years.

(This article was written by Kohei Higashitani and Kyosuke Yamamoto.)

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