The tech world is scrambling to get its hands on TSMC’s chips
Shares of TSMC surged today in local markets, with ADRs heading higher in premarket trading stateside after the semiconductor manufacturing giant posted big April sales figures.
Net revenues were nearly NT$350 billion, up 22% from the month prior and 48% for the year prior. That points to a rush on the part of its customers to grab high-tech components that had initially been excluded from the reciprocal tariff regime, albeit with commentary by White House officials suggesting that industry-specific levies were coming.
Disentangling how much of corporate and economic performance represents underlying demand and how much is about changes to purchasing behavior attributable to tariff fears/emergent realities has been, and will continue to be, a major challenge for economic and market soothsayers.
The Street thinks that TSMC’s revenues will be up less than 40% year on year in Q2, which would imply a) a slowdown in the rate of an annual growth going forward, and b) a nice revenue beat taking shape for the foundry titan.
Heading into today’s session, TSMC’s ADRs were down 11.3% year to date versus a 3.7% pullback for the S&P 500.
TSMC has to wrestle with what tariffs are doing not only to its operations, but also to financial markets: the surge in the Taiwanese dollar is leading to noteworthy margin compression.
