A quiet reopening that wasn’t quite quiet
The Taiwan Stock Exchange came back online Monday after a one-day closure on Friday, July 10 for Typhoon Bavi, and the headline number suggests very little happened: the TAIEX added 0.06% to close at 45,380.52. Beneath that flat print, the session was a tug-of-war. TSMC (2330) rose 1.04% to NT$2,440 and did the heavy lifting for the index, while the rest of the large-cap chip complex went the other way — MediaTek (2454) fell 2.55% to NT$3,825, UMC (2303) lost 1.60% to NT$153.50, and Hon Hai (2317) slipped 0.42% to NT$236.50.
Monday was the first chance for local investors to react to anything that happened during the pause, and the setup was fragile: the TAIEX had closed Thursday, July 9 at 45,354.61, down 0.83% on the day and roughly 3% for the week. Ex-dividend and ex-rights events originally scheduled for July 10 also settled Monday, adding some mechanical noise to the tape. Against that backdrop, a flat close reads as stabilization rather than indifference — the previous week’s selling pressure did not resume in force.
Institutional flows: foreigners sell, trusts lean in
Official exchange data for Monday’s session shows the three institutional categories were net sellers overall, with the pressure coming squarely from abroad:
| Investor category | Net trading value (July 13) | Direction |
|---|---|---|
| Foreign investors | NT$-19.58B | Net sell |
| Investment trusts | NT$+9.61B | Net buy |
| Dealers (proprietary + hedge) | NT$-11.10B | Net sell |
| Combined | NT$-21.07B | Net sell |
The pattern is a familiar one: foreign money reduced exposure into the reopening while domestic investment trusts absorbed part of the supply. That the index still closed marginally higher on a combined NT$21.07B institutional net sell says the buying came from elsewhere in the market — and that TSMC’s 1% gain, given its index weight (foreign investors hold 69.59% of the stock), was enough to offset breadth that was clearly softer among the other semiconductor names.
Sector picture: rotation at the margins
- Semiconductors: +0.23% — positive only because of TSMC; MediaTek and UMC dragged.
- Shipping: +0.63% — the day’s better-performing cyclical pocket.
- Financials & Insurance: +0.49% — steady bid, consistent with a stabilization session.
Derivatives positioning — previous-session data
A caveat that matters this week: TAIFEX positioning data for Monday has not yet been published, so the latest available figures are from Thursday, July 9 — before both the typhoon closure and Monday’s cash session. As of that print, foreign investors held a net short of 80,730 contracts in TAIEX futures open interest (with a small +468 net volume on the day), and the options put/call ratio stood at 118.81% on open interest and 100.89% on volume. Taken together with Monday’s cash-market selling, the pre-closure positioning skew was defensive — but note that these futures and options figures describe where books stood before the break, not how they moved Monday. With TX futures and options settling at Wednesday’s final settlement, Tuesday’s positioning data will be the more informative read.
The ADR gap and the currency
TSMC’s US-listed ADR closed at $434.11 on Friday, July 10 (US session), which works out to roughly a 14.3% premium over Monday’s Taipei close. Two reminders apply, as always: the ADR premium is structural — it has run roughly 15–25% in recent years owing to limited fungibility — and the two closes come from different sessions, made worse this week by Taipei’s typhoon holiday. The level of the gap tells you nothing new; the current reading sits at the low end of the recent range, and it is the day-to-day change in the gap that carries signal. The Taiwan dollar was essentially flat, with USD/TWD at 32.12 (+0.06%).
Valuation snapshot
At the latest TWSE valuation update (July 9 close): TSMC trades at 32.47x earnings and 10.63x book with a 0.91% yield; MediaTek at 62.55x earnings; UMC at 39.20x; Hon Hai remains the value outlier of the group at 16.87x earnings, 1.87x book, and a 3.02% yield. Monday’s divergence — TSMC up, the higher-multiple MediaTek down sharply — fits a market getting selective ahead of earnings rather than buying the sector wholesale.
What to watch
- TSMC Q2 2026 earnings, Thursday July 16 at 14:00 Taipei time. The single most important scheduled event for the tape, three sessions out, and the likely explanation for Monday’s TSMC-versus-the-rest divergence.
- TAIFEX final settlement, Wednesday July 15. With foreign futures books last seen net short 80,730 contracts (July 9 data), how that position rolls or unwinds into the third-Wednesday settlement is the near-term positioning question.
- Whether foreign cash selling persists. Monday’s NT$19.58B outflow came against domestic trust buying; a second consecutive day of foreign selling into the earnings print would harden the defensive read.
Disclaimer: This is an information and analysis publication, not investment advice. See our Methodology for data sources, standards, and our corrections policy.