Foreign money comes back, and the index runs
The TAIEX jumped 702.85 points, or 1.59%, to close Monday at 44,928.76, touching an intraday high of 45,219.4 before fading into the 13:30 close. Turnover was heavy at NT$847.37 billion. The setup was straightforward: weaker-than-expected US employment data on Friday firmed expectations of Federal Reserve rate cuts, the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index surged 2.56% in Friday’s US session, and Taipei opened Monday with both a macro tailwind and a sector lead.
Institutional flows: a sharp reversal
The defining detail of the session was the swing in institutional money. All three institutional groups were net buyers Monday:
| Investor group | Net trading value (Aug 10) |
|---|---|
| Foreign investors | NT$+51.71B (net buy) |
| Investment trusts | NT$+2.98B (net buy) |
| Dealers (prop + hedge) | NT$+18.47B (net buy) |
| Combined | NT$+73.17B |
State it plainly: foreigners bought, trusts bought, dealers bought. The reversal matters because Friday looked very different — institutions net sold NT$42.886 billion on August 7, with foreign investors alone unloading NT$40.716 billion, itself a whipsaw from a NT$90.3 billion foreign net buy on August 5. Three sessions, three directions, all in size. Foreign cash flow is choppy, not trending, and Monday’s buy should be read in that context.
Semiconductors: UMC steals the show, TSMC files a record
The TWSE Semiconductor sub-index rose 1.22% Monday, modestly lagging the broad tape — the rally was wider than chips alone. Within the sector, the dispersion was notable. UMC surged 6.03% to NT$123.00, far and away the day’s standout among heavyweights, and did so from an undemanding starting point (17.44x earnings and a 2.25% yield as of Friday’s close, versus 31.86x for TSMC and 64.41x for MediaTek). MediaTek added 1.54% to NT$3,960 and Hon Hai rose 1.73% to NT$264.50 amid continued attention on AI server shipments and custom ASIC demand. Elsewhere, Financials & Insurance gained 0.60% and Shipping was flat at +0.06%.
TSMC itself was the quiet one, up just 0.42% to NT$2,380 — but the news was loud. On monthly revenue filing-deadline day, the company reported July 2026 consolidated revenue of NT$467.58 billion, up 45% year over year and a new single-month record, driven by AI hardware demand. The muted price reaction suggests much of it was anticipated. On that note: TSM ADRs closed Friday’s US session at $420.04, roughly 13.7% above Monday’s Taipei close on a five-shares-per-ADR basis. The two prints are from different sessions — Taipei rallied after New York closed, which mechanically compresses the measured gap — and the ADR habitually carries a structural premium of roughly 15–25% in recent years due to limited fungibility. The level is not an arbitrage signal; only day-to-day shifts in the gap carry information.
Positioning: the derivatives book hasn’t confirmed yet
A caveat on positioning data: TAIFEX figures for Monday are not yet published, so the latest derivatives read is Friday’s. As of the August 7 session, foreign investors held a net open interest of -87,911 contracts in TAIEX futures, and the options put/call ratio stood at 106.42% on open interest (99.19% by volume). That is Friday’s defensive book, not Monday’s — it cannot be credited with, or blamed for, today’s move. Whether foreigners covered that futures short into Monday’s cash buying is the single most interesting data release of tomorrow.
Taiwan’s three leverage and short channels, kept separate as always. Retail leveraged longs (margin purchases) rose NT$4.86 billion to NT$537.7 billion as of Friday — retail adding exposure, gently. In the institutional short channel (SBL borrowed shares, also Friday’s data), balances rose in 477 shortable issues and fell in 396, but the large-cap detail leaned toward covering: Hon Hai’s SBL balance fell 1.71 million shares and UMC’s fell 1.21 million, while TSMC (+79,000 shares) and MediaTek (+53,000) saw only modest adds. Retail margin shorts in the big names were trivial and mostly shrinking. Net picture: cash buying with covering in select large caps, against a still-short futures book from last week — a tension worth watching rather than a resolved signal.
Currency and a rule change
The Taiwan dollar was little changed against the US dollar Monday, ending around 32.22. Intraday, it opened at 32.26 and appreciated 2.8 cents to trade in the 32.24–32.26 range, but the session’s overall move was negligible. Separately, the TWSE’s updated “Attention Securities” and disposition rules took effect today, shortening disposition cooling-off periods from 10 to 5 trading days, a liquidity-friendly tweak for the speculative end of the tape. Overnight, S&P 500 futures pointed modestly higher at +0.11% (7,788.50) after the cash index rose 0.62% Friday.
What to watch
- Monday’s TAIFEX data (published tomorrow): whether foreign investors’ -87,911-contract TAIEX futures net short from Friday was covered into the NT$51.71B cash buy, or whether the hedge stays on.
- July revenue filings: today was the deadline for all Taiwan-listed companies. TSMC’s 45% YoY record set the bar; the rest of the AI supply chain’s prints will test the breadth of the demand story.
- Flow persistence: after -NT$40.7B Friday and +NT$51.7B Monday, one more session of foreign buying would distinguish a positioning reset from noise.
Disclaimer: This is an information and analysis publication, not investment advice. See our Methodology for data sources, standards, and our corrections policy.