The TAIEX early yesterday hit an all-time intraday high on the back of soaring Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) shares, before tumbling back to the previous day’s close as the contract chipmaker could not single-handedly prop up the index.
The TAIEX rose more than 400 points in the first 20 minutes of trading to hit a record 13,031.7 points, but later pared its gains to close down 0.01 percent at 12,586.73.
Turnover was NT$343.252 billion (US$11.63 billion), the highest in the Taiwan Stock Exchange’s history.
Photo: Bloomberg / I-Hwa Cheng
TSMC continued to dictate the market’s direction, as its early surge by the daily maximum 10 percent to NT$466.5 accounted for more than 350 points of the TAIEX’s early gains.
The company also vaulted into the world’s top 10 firms in terms of market capitalization, ahead of Johnson & Johnson and Visa Inc.
TSMC shares later retreated, closing up 2.47 percent at NT$435, which still represented a 39 percent gain this month.
Its gains kept the TAIEX from falling steeply, after contributing 327 points to the benchmark index a day earlier, when the overall index rose 284.26 points.
“TSMC’s one-stock show has been rarely seen in decades,” Shin Kong Investment Trust Co (新光投信) chairman Quincy Liu (劉坤錫) said.
“The broader market has been held together by TSMC the past two days. Yesterday, MediaTek Inc (聯發科) helped out, and today support was seen from LED, Apple Inc-concept and bicycle stocks, which is a healthier trend than yesterday,” Liu said.
The TAIEX rose 2.31 percent on Monday, despite 763 stocks falling and 150 stocks rising.
“With every NT$1 increase in TSMC equaling an 8.5-point increase in the TAIEX, TSMC has accounted for about 90 percent of the index’s gains in the past two days,” Liu said.
Among other gainers in the Apple supply chain, iPhone assembler Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) rose 0.5 percent to NT$78.4 and smartphone camera lens supplier Largan Precision Co (大立光) gained 2.49 percent to NT$3,910.
Several other electronics stocks could not stay in positive territory.
MediaTek ended down 6.59 percent at NT$680 after a 4 percent rise earlier, Marketech International Corp (帆宣) plummeted 7.57 percent to NT$116 to erase an earlier gain of 9 percent and Yageo Corp (國巨) fell 5.42 percent to NT$384, off a high of NT$420.
Liu said that TSMC’s success is due to its favorable position in a world where China is “de-Americanizing” and other countries are distancing themselves from China.
“TSMC’s ability to make high-end chips for artificial intelligence, high-performance computing and smart manufacturing applications in the 5G era gives it an invaluable role, allowing it to benefit from both the ‘de-Americanization’ and ‘de-Sinicization’ trends,” Liu said.
Tsai Ming-han (蔡明翰), a manager at Cathay Futures Corp (國泰期貨), said the TAIEX’s rally has come to an end for the time being.
He said he expects the market to remain turbulent in the short term, but remains bullish regarding medium and long-term prospects.
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last
US CONSCULTANT: The US Department of Commerce’s Ursula Burns is a rarely seen US government consultant to be put forward to sit on the board, nominated as an independent director Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, yesterday nominated 10 candidates for its new board of directors, including Ursula Burns from the US Department of Commerce. It is rare that TSMC has nominated a US government consultant to sit on its board. Burns was nominated as one of seven independent directors. She is vice chair of the department’s Advisory Council on Supply Chain Competitiveness. Burns is to stand for election at TSMC’s annual shareholders’ meeting on June 4 along with the rest of the candidates. TSMC chairman Mark Liu (劉德音) was not on the list after in December last