TSM

Taiwan Semiconductor's (TSM) report this week added another bright chapter in the global AI history. The world's very first dedicated semiconductor foundry and now the exclusive supplier of NVidia's and Apple's most advanced chips announced its revenue for June reached 207.87 billion in Taiwan’s Dollars (roughly $6.4 billion). This marked a substantial growth of nearly 33% YoY, while the company's revenue number for the last 6 months (January through June) has also been 28% better compared to the similar period in 2023. Both figures were above average analyst projections, so that TSM shares listed on NYSE quickly rose by more than 3.5% on July 10, adding one more percentage point at the pre-market on July 11.

US-Sino trade war threats surrounded the island's economy for many years, and so I personally keep myself aside from direct investments into Taiwan stocks. Meanwhile, this prominent chipmaker's shares are not only outperforming the US broad market barometer but are serving as a bellwether for the further stage of the NVidia-led AI rally. For example, some of my long-term favourites like Micron Technology (MU) and Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) already added about 4% to their corresponding market value in sync with TSM's extra step up.

You may say that AMD jump was supported by the acquisition deal of Silo AI, which brought AMD's a reputable European team in open-source, and multilingual large language models. That's true but this bare fact alone was hardly a sufficient reason for many investment houses to instantly raise their target prices for AMD to $200 or above. By the way, the AI behemoth Microsoft added more than 1.5% the same day, while the NVidia flagship suddenly put 2.63% in its piggy bank. Well, this is another stage of the AI trend, which is hard to stop. The S&P 500 (US 500) just closed above 5,600 points for the first time.

It is all obviously coming to more record highs in NVidia, along with the whole circle of its satellite stocks like MU, AVGO, QCOM etc. A perfect moment to swear an oath of holding the entire AI-based part of the stock portfolio at least for two or three more months.