TOKYO STOCK EXCHANGE

the main stock market of Japan, located in Tokyo, and one of the world's largest marketplaces for securities. The exchange was first opened in 1878 to provide a market for the trading of government bonds that had been newly issued to former samurai. At first, government bonds, gold, and silver currencies formed the bulk of the exchange's trade, but with the growth and modernization of Japan's economy, trading in stocks had come to predominate by the 1920s and '30s. The Tokyo Stock Exchange, along with all other Japanese stock exchanges, was closed from 1945 to 1949, at which time it opened after being reorganized by the American occupation authorities. In the postwar decades, the Tokyo Exchange became more important than its chief rival, the Osaka Stock Exchange, and, by the late 20th century, it accounted for more than 90 percent of all securities transactions in Japan. As the phenomenal growth of Japan's economy continued, the Tokyo Stock Exchange grew to become, by the late 1980s, the world's largest securities exchange, overtaking the New York Stock Exchange.