The Japanese stock market crash of the early 1990s is the investing equivalent of a scary bedtime story. “What about Japan?” the old hands mutter darkly whenever the youngsters get overly excited about their S&P 500 profits. As well they might, because the Japanese nightmare has an irreducible ‘There but for the grace of God…’ quality about it.

Partly that’s because the bursting of the Japanese bubble was such an extraordinary fall from grace.