In 1982, Sony Walkmans were taking the world by storm; the electronic game Donkey Kong had just been introduced and the first CD player was sold in Japan. It was also the year when the Nikkei 225 Average was trading above the 7,000 mark.

Electronics have moved on a great deal since then – but not the Japanese stock market. Yesterday the Nikkei sank back to the level it last reached in October 1982, after falling 6.4 per cent to 7,162.90. It is lower, in other words, than at any point during the country’s “lost decade” of the 1990s or indeed at any point since the dotcom bust at the start of this decade, when Japan was busy handling a self-imposed financial crisis.