The higher they go, the farther they'll fall.

That's exactly what has happened on the Tokyo stock market.

As of Friday, the Topix index of all shares listed on the Tokyo market's first section was down 21 percent since the beginning of the year and the 225-issue Nikkei average down 22 percent in a turnaround from their respective 58 percent and 37 percent rises in all of last year.

The technology-heavy U.S. Nasdaq composite index was, as of Friday, roughly halfway below its March peak and now sits about where it did in the fall of 1999.

The trigger for the bursting of the speculative bubble was the U.S. credit-tightening.

Unlike the past bubble some years ago, the New York market had been riding the boom in the growth-oriented information technology sector.

Once the corrections of excessive share prices run their course, nevertheless, one could begin to envisage something of a floor forming beneath the market.

The price of Intel shares is around 20 times earnings, a fair level despite anticipated falls in profits.

On the Tokyo market, too, a good number of technology issues have dropped to attractive price levels.

Daiwa Institute of Research has painted an optimistic picture of the economy, forecasting a 2.3 percent year-on-year rise in gross domestic product for fiscal 2000, up from a 1.4 percent increase in fiscal 1999.

What's more, a 2.7 percent rise has been projected for fiscal 2001 and 2.4 percent for 2002.

The forecast is based on the assumption that capital investment will stay at high levels through fiscal 2002 accompanied by a roughly 2 percent pickup in annual consumer spending.

When Tokyo share prices hit their postbubble low in fiscal 1998, the nation's gross domestic product shrank 0.6 percent. Now that few forecasting agencies expect negative growth in the coming fiscal year, Tokyo stock prices appear poised to stage a strong rebound.

The Nikkei average could rise more than 20 percent next year to end the year at 18,000, a level unseen since May, with the average share price staying at a relatively low level of 32 times earnings.