The TAIEX touched an all-time intraday high of 46,402.60 on Friday morning, then gave it all back. The index closed down 210.47 points, or 0.46%, at 45,811.01 — snapping a four-day winning streak and slipping back below the 46,000 mark on heavy turnover of NT$1.0645 trillion. The afternoon selling was concentrated in the electronics heavyweights, with TSMC down 1.64% at NT$2,395. Yet the day’s most telling number ran the other way: foreign investors finished the session as net buyers of NT$45.35 billion in the cash market despite the reversal. Even after Friday’s pullback, the index gained 1,585.10 points on the week.
Flows: foreign investors finish as net buyers
The three major institutional categories were combined net buyers of NT$50.89 billion on Friday, per official exchange data:
- Foreign investors: net BUY NT$45.35 billion. A large print, and notable for landing on a down day at record-high index levels.
- Investment trusts: net BUY NT$7.20 billion. Domestic funds leaning the same direction.
- Dealers: net SELL NT$1.66 billion — proprietary books sold NT$2.74 billion while hedging accounts bought NT$1.08 billion.
Daily net figures do not reveal when within the session institutions traded, so the morning spike and afternoon fade cannot be attributed to any one group. What the full-day data does establish is that institutions in aggregate ended the session as substantial net buyers even as the index fell — with the selling concentrated in the electronics heavyweights while several sector sub-indices rose.
Beneath the heavyweights: drones, plastics, memory
The internals were far stronger than the headline index. The TWSE Semiconductor sub-index rose 1.45% even with TSMC and UMC lower, carried by memory and second-tier names — Powerchip (PSMC) gained 4.67% and Winbond 3.67%. Shipping added 1.50% and Financials & Insurance 0.93%.
The day’s standout theme was defense: drone and uncrewed-systems names including Thunder Tiger, Air Asia, AIDC and Chenfull Precision hit the 10% limit-up ceiling after the Legislative Yuan passed a NT$63.4 billion budget for uncrewed systems. Nan Ya Plastics also locked limit-up at NT$207.5, pulling the plastics sector up more than 7%, and ASUS surged 6.3% to NT$996 after briefly trading through NT$1,000 — the thousand-dollar club briefly counted 53 members intraday.
Heavyweight scorecard
| Stock | Close (NT$) | Change | Thursday positioning note |
|---|---|---|---|
| TSMC (2330) | 2,395.00 | -1.64% | Retail margin longs trimmed (-641 lots); SBL balance +112,000 shares |
| MediaTek (2454) | 4,210.00 | -0.36% | SBL balance +127,000 shares |
| Hon Hai (2317) | 259.50 | -0.95% | SBL balance fell by 2.373 million shares |
| UMC (2303) | 121.00 | -2.81% | Retail margin longs +5,938 lots; SBL balance -435,000 shares |
UMC’s setup is worth flagging: the worst performer among the big four, yet retail leveraged longs added aggressively into the drop while the institutional short balance fell. On Thursday’s official figures it trades at 18.72x earnings against TSMC’s 32.74x and MediaTek’s 69.78x.
Positioning: what Thursday’s data showed
Derivatives and leverage data run a session behind — the figures below are from Thursday, August 13, and do not describe Friday’s positioning.
- TAIFEX futures: foreign investors carried a net short of 86,249 TX contracts in open interest as of Thursday; separately, their net trading volume that session was +380 contracts. That short book sits alongside Friday’s NT$45.35 billion cash buying heading into settlement week — though aggregate one-day cash flow and prior-session open interest cannot establish that the same investors held both sides as a hedge.
- Options: the put/call ratio stood at 112.03% on open interest and 106.24% on volume as of Thursday — mildly put-tilted, unremarkable.
- Retail leverage: the market-wide margin loan balance rose NT$1.70 billion to NT$549.8 billion — retail leveraged longs still building, at a measured pace.
- Institutional shorts (SBL): balances rose in 530 shortable issues and fell in 344 — breadth of institutional shorting widened slightly, even as Hon Hai’s SBL balance saw a meaningful decline.
Currency and the ADR gap
The Taiwan dollar had a strong day: USD/TWD opened at 32.15 and finished at 32.00, a roughly 0.6% TWD gain versus the prior session’s close, consistent with the foreign inflow. On the policy front, the US placed Taiwan among more than 40 economies on a Tier 1 transshipment watch list requiring heightened export verification — one to file rather than trade, for now.
TSMC’s ADR closed at $430.49 in New York on Thursday, which on a 5:1 basis stands about 15.0% above Friday’s Taipei close. Two reminders as always: the ADR premium is structural, running roughly 15-25% in recent years given limited fungibility, and the two closes come from different sessions. At the bottom of its habitual band, the level itself signals nothing — it is day-to-day shifts in the gap that carry information.
The overnight backdrop had been supportive: softer-than-expected US July PPI lifted AI leaders including NVIDIA and Super Micro, with the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index up 0.46% and the S&P 500 up 0.65% at Thursday’s US close. S&P futures were flat at 7,821.50 during Taipei hours.
What to watch
- Settlement week. TAIFEX August TX futures and options settle Wednesday, August 19. Watch Friday’s positioning data when published: whether foreign investors trimmed the 86,249-contract net short into the intraday reversal will frame the run-in.
- Follow-through on foreign cash buying. NT$45.35 billion on a down day is conviction; a second consecutive large print with TWD holding at or below 32.00 would confirm the inflow story.
- TSMC vs. the NT$2,400 line. The stock closed just below it while the semi sub-index rose 1.45% on memory strength — whether the heavyweight rejoins its own sector is Monday’s first question.
Disclaimer: This is an information and analysis publication, not investment advice. See our Methodology for data sources, standards, and our corrections policy.