A rebound that survived settlement day
The TAIEX closed Wednesday at 46,887.77, up 594.84 points or 1.28%, reclaiming its 5-day moving average on expanded turnover of NT$833.19 billion. The session had more texture than the closing print suggests: early buying pushed the index up more than 900 points to an intraday high of 47,254.93, gains were then pared by profit-taking and the gravitational pull of TAIFEX futures and options final settlement — today was the third Wednesday — before a late rally locked in a gain of nearly 600 points. Holding a 1%-plus advance through a settlement session, rather than fading into it, is the day’s headline.
Institutional flows: the sellers finally paused
- Foreign investors: net BUY of NT$0.96 billion — modest in size, but it snaps a 10-consecutive-session net selling streak, the first foreign net buy in eleven sessions.
- Investment trusts: net buy of NT$12.92 billion — the day’s real buying power came from domestic trusts, not the foreign desk.
- Dealers: net sell of NT$13.31 billion, split between NT$5.93 billion of proprietary selling and NT$7.38 billion of hedge-book selling — the latter consistent with position unwinds into settlement.
- Three institutions combined: net buy of NT$0.57 billion.
Read plainly: foreigners stopped selling rather than started buying with conviction, and investment trusts carried the tape. Whether the foreign turn has follow-through is the open question.
Financials led; semis steady, substrates hot
By sector index, Financials & Insurance jumped 2.55%, Semiconductors rose 0.96%, and Shipping added 0.24%. TSMC recovered from Tuesday’s dip, gaining NT$15 (+0.62%) to NT$2,420 and contributing roughly 119–120 points of the index advance. Hon Hai was the standout heavyweight, up 3.52% to NT$250, with Delta Electronics adding 1.25% and Quanta, Fubon Financial and Cathay Financial all higher. MediaTek bucked the move, opening higher but closing down 0.24% at NT$4,140.
The speculative energy sat in the board-level supply chain: the ABF substrate trio rallied, led by Kinsus touching limit-up intraday before closing at NT$1,010, with Unimicron and Nan Ya PCB higher alongside ASE. PCB, copper-clad laminate, low-Earth-orbit satellite and passive-component names ran on order-visibility stories, with Walsin Technology among several limit-ups.
| Stock | Close (NT$) | Day | PER | Foreign ownership |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| TSMC (2330) | 2,420 | +0.62% | 27.9x | 68.7% |
| Hon Hai (2317) | 250 | +3.52% | 15.9x | 39.7% |
| MediaTek (2454) | 4,140 | -0.24% | 68.5x | 54.3% |
| UMC (2303) | 128 | +0.79% | 19.1x | 39.9% |
On the ADR check: TSM closed at $425.08 in New York on Tuesday, roughly 13.9% above Wednesday’s Taipei close. That gap is structural — it has run roughly 15–25% in recent years given limited fungibility — and the two closes come from different sessions, so the level itself tells you little. What is mildly notable is that the gap currently sits below its recent range; the day-to-day direction of that spread is worth tracking, not trading.
Currency: a round trip past 32.7
The Taiwan dollar had its own intraday drama. Early foreign-outflow pressure pushed USD/TWD past 32.7 to an intraday low of 32.704 for the currency — its weakest since mid-April 2025 — before exporter dollar sales, central bank smoothing and the equity rally pulled it back. The pair finished at 32.43, with the TWD 0.16% firmer on the day, a swing of more than NT$0.20 intraday.
Positioning and leverage (previous-session data)
TAIFEX data lags by a day, so the following describes Tuesday’s setup going into today’s settlement, not today’s positioning. Foreign investors held a net short of 89,748 contracts in TAIEX futures open interest as of Tuesday, and the volume-based options put/call ratio stood at 129.06% — a defensively skewed book heading into expiry. Today’s post-settlement reset, published tomorrow, will show how much of that was expiry-related hedging.
Keeping Taiwan’s three leverage channels separate: market-wide margin purchase balances (retail leveraged longs) slipped NT$2.52 billion to NT$638.1 billion as of Tuesday — mild retail deleveraging, not capitulation. In the SBL channel (institutional shorts), balances rose in 470 shortable issues and fell in 422. Stock-level detail from Tuesday is interesting in hindsight: Hon Hai’s SBL balance fell by 3.18 million shares and MediaTek’s by 0.60 million — institutional short covering that preceded Wednesday’s 3.52% Hon Hai jump — while UMC’s SBL balance rose 2.98 million shares even as the stock gained today.
Global backdrop
The overnight US session offered little push: the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index slipped 0.29% to 11,283.81 and the Nasdaq eased 0.02%, while the S&P 500 rose 0.28% to 7,712.57. S&P 500 futures trading up 0.48% at 7,771.75 during Asian hours helped the risk tone, as did upbeat AI-server and space-tech news from Super Micro and SpaceX and DBS Bank’s forecast of 11.6% Taiwan GDP growth for 2026 on AI infrastructure demand.
What to watch
- Foreign flow follow-through. One day of NT$0.96 billion buying after ten days of selling proves nothing; watch whether cash buying persists and whether the 89,748-contract futures net short (Tuesday’s reading) is trimmed after settlement.
- USD/TWD around 32.4–32.7. Today’s rebound from a 1.5-year low needed exporter selling and central bank smoothing; whether it holds without them will signal if the outflow pressure has genuinely eased.
- Post-settlement positioning reset. Tomorrow’s TAIFEX open interest and put/call prints are the first clean read on positioning free of expiry distortion.
Disclaimer: This is an information and analysis publication, not investment advice. See our Methodology for data sources, standards, and our corrections policy.