Taiwan benchmark Taiex rises to record intraday high as tech stocks advance

Taiwan's benchmark Taiex rose to a record intraday high of 48,601.53 on Tuesday, driven by gains in the tech sector, following an AI-driven rally on Wall Street which was supported by investor optimism over early signs of success for Meta's AI agent.

Shares of Taiwan chip manufacturing giant TSMC rose 0.40%, while MediaTek gained 7.88% and Delta Electronics rose by 2.67%. The three stocks — all semiconductor industry giants — are the largest companies by market capitalization on the Taiex index.

The Taiex intraday high on Tuesday came around three months after it hit a record high in June. Investors have been seeing overall strong growth in Taiwanese stocks so far this year, thanks to the AI boom and Taiwan's position as one of the world's most critical semiconductor and hardware supply chains.

"The Taiwan equity market is dominated by the technology sector, which represents about 88% of the benchmark market index, and most of this is the semiconductor industry," according to a note by Standard Chartered in July.

"Taiwan produces over 90% of the world's most advanced semiconductor chips, specifically those measuring 7 nanometres and smaller," Standard Chartered added.

According to HSBC data tracking global equity-market capitalization rankings in May, Taiwan has overtaken Canada to become the world's sixth-largest stock market.

Meanwhile, traders are also keeping watch for developments relating to Taiwan's August export orders due later today. "Markets expect the print to remain resilient at 63.0% y/y (Jul: 61.9%), underscoring sustained AI-related demand," UOB said in a Sept. 22 note.