Taiwan stocks briefly top 40,000 on TSMC rally

Taiwan stocks rose on April 27 as the Taiex briefly crossed 40,000 for the first time in morning trade.

This was lifted by a record high in Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. as investors bet on continued demand tied to AI.

By 10:30 a.m. in Taipei, the benchmark index was up 964.39 points, or 2.48%, at 39,896.29 after earlier reaching 40,194.92.

TSMC, Taiwan’s biggest listed chipmaker, rose 5.72% to NT$2,310 (US$73) after its American depositary receipts gained 5.17% on April 24.

ASE Technology Holding rose 0.71% to NT$499.50 (US$16) while MediaTek fell 0.41% to NT$2,425 (US$77).

Hon Hai Precision gained 1.58% to NT$225 (US$7.1).

🔗 Source: Focus Taiwan

🧠 Food for thought

Implications, context, and why it matters.

A rule change is adding to AI enthusiasm and lifting the stock 1.
Taiwan’s financial regulator plans to loosen rules. The change would let domestic equity funds plus actively managed exchange-traded funds (ETFs) focused on Taiwanese equities put up to 25% of assets in one stock, up from the earlier 10% cap 1.
That shift removes a limit that had left many fund managers holding less TSMC than its weight in Taiwan’s main stock index 1.
The new policy could bring steady buying through portfolio rebalancing, which would support the share price even without near-term earnings changes 1.

TSMC’s edge now goes beyond producing the most advanced transistors, which helps explain confidence in the stock 2.
The main constraint in high-end AI systems has shifted to advanced packaging. This process joins processors with High Bandwidth Memory (HBM), a type of fast memory used in AI computing, into one component 2.
TSMC plans to nearly quadruple advanced packaging capacity from late 2024 to the end of 2026 2.
That expansion makes TSMC a leading, and at times preferred, partner for high-end AI chips. Nvidia has reportedly secured more than 60% of this CoWoS capacity for 2025 and 2026 2.