Argues the TSE should have closed amid post-quake panic, recounts foreign brokers’ emergency call on Mar 15, and links market turmoil to Japan’s “weak politics.”

A blog post from March 27, 2011. The author criticizes the Tokyo Stock Exchange’s (TSE) response following the Great East Japan Earthquake and Fukushima nuclear accident, using a Nikkei Shimbun article to validate their assertion that the market should have been closed. The article reveals that foreign securities firms considered requesting a market closure. The author argues that Japan’s “political weakness,” created by the media and commentators, is the core problem.

I was not wrong to have written, immediately after March 11, that the TSE should be closed.
March 27, 2011.

Today’s Nikkei reports this: the main players on the TSE now—foreign brokerage houses, accounting for 60–70% of trading—held an emergency conference call when stocks plunged on the 15th amid the nuclear accident, with Goldman Sachs at the forefront and more than ten firms joining the discussion.
…On the 15th, the stock market fell into panic.
That morning there was another explosion at Fukushima Daiichi.
When Prime Minister Naoto Kan (64) instructed residents within a 20–30 km radius to shelter indoors, and Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano (46) said radiation levels at the plant were “numbers that affect the human body,” stock prices dropped as if the bottom had fallen out.
Around 1 p.m., the Nikkei Average briefly fell into the 8,200-yen range.

“Should we jointly request that the Tokyo Stock Exchange close the market?”
In a state of panic, Japan heads of more than ten foreign financial institutions—including Goldman Sachs and Credit Suisse—held an emergency conference call and debated the issue.
In the end, the request was shelved, but some firms, fearing the damage would spread, allowed foreign employees to return home or began shifting some operations to Hong Kong and elsewhere.
(Excerpt ends.)

After this, stock prices made what is called a half retracement, but the fact remains.
I cannot agree with the TSE’s ex-post rationale of opening the market as if nothing had happened the following week—but that is over now.

What I want everyone to know is this: thinking “that’s impossible” or treating matters as if they were predetermined is entirely wrong.
Japan, a great nation standing alongside the United States—or any Japanese who think, study, and recognize that fact—should know that we can decide for ourselves.

Looking at how the public responded this time, they are praising Japan and saying it is admirable.
So what is Japan’s problem?
The “weakness of politics,” which is the result of what they—the mass media—kept producing; the world also points this out and worries about it.
This alone is Japan’s problem.
Who made it so?
The television you kept watching, and the editorialists—the “Tahe-bana” and the “Hohe”—that is their sin.
Note: “Tahe-bana” = Tachibana, “Hohe” = Hoshi. (Added 2025/9/7.)