Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday again smashed records, with the gains in its share price pushing up the stock’s market capitalization to a new high.
As TSMC needed only three trading sessions to return to a level before it went ex-dividend on June 27, buyers — in particular from foreign institutional investors — continued to chase TSMC shares, leading the stock to steam ahead, dealers said.
With the world’s largest contract chipmaker on Monday reporting that its sales for the second quarter beat the company’s earlier estimate, investors’ confidence in the firm has been reinforced, they said.
Shares of TSMC — the most heavily weighted stock on the TAIEX — gained 0.59 percent to close at NT$171, and its market cap rose from the NT$4.41 trillion (US$136.9 billion) seen a day earlier to NT$4.43 trillion,the highest-ever for a local company.
Before TSMC’s stock went ex-dividend, foreign institutional investors held a 78.46 percent stake in the company.
Their holdings increased to 78.9 percent on Monday following aggressive buying.
As of press time last night, the Taiwan Stock Exchange had not released yesterday’s data.
In the second quarter, TSMC posted NT$221.81 billion in consolidated sales, representing an increase of 9 percent from the previous quarter. The figure surpassed the company’s mid-April forecast of between NT$215 billion and NT$218 billion.
“Amid optimism toward TSMC’s fundamentals, some foreign brokerages have even anticipated that TSMC shares will challenge NT$200 in the near future,” KGI Securities (凱基證券) analyst Phil Chu said. “It was no surprise that the stock has continued to move higher pushing up its market cap.”
Chu said that a recent strong showing also reflected hopes that TSMC would give an upbeat assessment of its third quarter outlook in an investor conference scheduled for today, as the July-to-September period is a traditional peak season for the global semiconductor industry.
Analysts said that TSMC could receive a huge order from Apple Inc to supply processors for its next-generation of iPhones, while the chipmaker could also benefit from the launches of smartphones running on the Android platform.
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