TSM
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Ltd.
stock NYSE ADR

True, but when the stock stopped responding well to earnings, which was last August I finished liquidating my position and turned it into cash. That cash was used to ride up new positions in TSM, WDC and MU. I am now completely out of all of those three and now bringing it back into NVDA.
I think the point of what I’m saying is rather than sitting there waiting for a stock to start to perform again sometimes it’s better to read the chart action, follow it, take your profits and apply them into a new profitable trade.
You can always come back to an older trade!

Leverage unwind is painful.
Situational Awareness, $45 Billion blowout, just a Trailer
“Margin Call”, Rev 2, new movie after Trillion AI crash, wait to see next.
$WDC $SNDK $HUBS $DDOG $MU $AMD $STX $INTC $TSM $SKHY & many in $SMH $QQQ have extremely concentrated leverage

DATA NOTE
Prior-session closes came from Realtime Finance Data daily history for August 04, 2026, with August 03 comparison closes; percentage changes are computed from those exact closes. All 23 tracked symbols returned prices. Investing.com supplied the pre-market page: it reported overall top movers but did not provide price or percentage-change values for the semiconductor most-active list. Context came from Investing.com’s economic calendar, Barchart/AP and CNBC Asia coverage, CNBC and Reuters AMD coverage, and an Investing.com analyst roundup.
PRIOR SESSION
SOXX $542.21 \[+6.80%\] | SMH $575.71 \[+5.55%\]
The complex had a broad risk-on session: all 23 tracked names finished higher, with equipment, memory, and communications names leading the move. SOXX outpaced SMH, while NVDA (+2.56%) and TSM (+2.72%) lagged the group’s strongest rallies.
PRE-MARKET (as of \~7:15am ET)
Showed a semiconductor-led pre-market: ANET was the overall top gainer at +12.44% and AMD was the overall top loser at -8.42%. Its semiconductor most-active list included MU, AMD, NVDA, and INTC, but the page supplied no price or percentage-change values for those names.
Top movers: ANET +12.44% | AMD -8.42%
TOP MOVERS (PRIOR SESSION)
ENTG gained 15.46% to $144.56, the largest tracked move; the read was a strong catch-up advance in semiconductor materials and equipment.
WOLF rose 11.13% to $27.06, reflecting high-beta participation in the sector-wide rebound.
INTC advanced 10.84% to $100.86 as the AI, memory, and semiconductor complex repriced higher across Asia and the U.S.
No tracked name declined. The three smallest gains were ON +0.47% at $80.78, NVDA +2.56% at $211.94, and TSM +2.72% at $417.17, making them relative laggards in an otherwise uniformly positive list.
PRE-MARKET OUTLOOK
Asia extended the overnight AI and semiconductor bid: the KOSPI rose 4.40%, SK hynix gained 6.70%, Samsung Electronics rose 4.10%, TSMC added 3.50%, Tokyo Electron gained 3.64%, and Kioxia advanced 6.34%; the Nikkei 225 rose 3.30%. The common thread was follow-through from the U.S. semiconductor rally, with memory and equipment leading.
Today’s U.S. calendar is concentrated in services, labor, and energy: ADP Employment Change at 7:15am ET, forecast 68K versus 98K prior; S&P Global Services PMI at 8:45am ET, forecast 53.6 versus 51.2 prior; ISM Non-Manufacturing PMI at 9:00am ET, forecast 54.5 versus 54.0 prior; EIA crude inventories at 9:30am ET, prior -7.167M barrels; and Fed Governor Lisa Cook speaking at 3:05pm ET. Friday’s larger macro risk is payrolls: forecast 70K versus 57K prior, with the unemployment-rate forecast and prior both 4.2%.
NEWS DRIVING THE TAPE
AMD reported Q2 revenue of $11.54 billion versus the $11.28 billion estimate, adjusted EPS of $1.66 versus $1.62 expected, and Data Center revenue of $6.72 billion, up 107% year over year. Q3 revenue guidance was $13.00 billion plus or minus $0.30 billion versus the $12.52 billion LSEG estimate; the stock closed at $518.58, up 7.00%, then fell 8.8% in extended trading as the bar for AI growth remained high.
The Asia bid also reflected memory and AI-infrastructure news: SK hynix and SanDisk released a High Bandwidth Flash standard, while Kioxia and SanDisk announced QLC 3D NAND with bit density up to 60% higher than their eighth-generation products. The tape is therefore rewarding AI compute, memory, and equipment exposure, while still penalizing guidance that does not clear the highest expectations.
The earnings schedule showed ENTG reported on August 04. VIAV’s schedule is inconsistent: it lists a 4:30pm ET event on August 05, while the accompanying preview says August 06; verify the company calendar before posting any timing claim.
ANALYST WATCH
The latest rating roundup reviewed for AMD had Susquehanna raising its price target from $450 to $500 and Mizuho raising its target from $615 to $625; Benchmark maintained Buy with a $685 target, while Morgan Stanley maintained Hold with a $410 target. The analytical read across the four pillars is constructive on AI compute, memory, and equipment demand, but AMD’s after-hours reversal shows that a beat is not enough when expectations are elevated. No same-day verified rating change was identified in the morning scan for ASML, LRCX, AMAT, NVDA, INTC, TSM, or the other tracked pillars.
DISCLAIMER
For informational and educational purposes only. Not financial advice. Past performance does not guarantee future results. We do not recommend nor do we advise any buy/sell tickers.Ever.

TSM is a forever company. If not for the China threat, they would in my opinion be the most valuable company in the world

I've beaten the market over the past 5 years on Etoro and, more recently across the last year after setting up additionally on Trading 212.
You can beat the market, although most won't, so ETFs are the most logical way.
But ETFs work because capitalism grows wealth for the biggest, and within this there is certainly ways to beat the market by investing in moments of stagnation for big companies, and in stocks you have personal knowledge about.
My primary success stories. Investing in Meta when it dropped to the early 90s.
Alphabet when it was considerably undervalued.
Banks around the point of the minor regional bank crisis when interest rates were due to rise and banks would make a killing.
Shopify (personal knowledge of the field).
Recent success cases include Microsoft, Amazon, Merk, ASML, TSM HP.
And failure cases, for balance. Stellantis (held onto too long after a major increase before selling at a loss). Adobe (decrease). Uber (still at a loss).
I don't think it makes sense to chase tiny stocks in the hope of massive upside. Or to leverage risk in an uncertain market. But there are moments when great stocks are overlooked or when investors overreact to minor bad news, and this is a good buying opportunity.

Thanks for this. You’re right re: the gap. I did an analysis where I looked at the durability of demand for various components in the semi supply chain and measured it against price. Durability-wise, TSM and GEV scored very highly. Also, a lot of the qualitative analysis I did reading sources (especially semianalysis) suggested the real long term bottleneck is foundry capacity and the underlying bottleneck below that is ASML. Basically, it’s really hard to increase EUV capacity quickly. They’ve got many many suppliers, many of whom are niche producers.

I am sensitive. Thanks, I actually appreciate the perspective on the 4% position it’s making me re-think some of my positions, like a 2% position in TSM, is it really making a difference at $2,000 especially if it’s certainly not going to be a 10 or 100 bagger. I guess I think of the dramatic example of if you had invested in NVDA or TSLA at IPO even very small values would’ve made millionaires. I didn’t know that re Lynch, that sounds like an expensive and unnecessarily risky way to bookmark a company

In 2023 I put 50% of my net worth in Semis between SMH/TSM. In 2024 When NVDA exploded I noticed TSM had barely moved relative to NVDA and leveraged myself on LEAPs.

TSM at ~$ 390 average: the case, and the thing that would make me sell

TSM looking like a nice price to add

Reminder that the SPACs all popped Feb 2021, but SPY went up until Jan 2022 before popping itself, declining 34%. Big tech declined sooner and harder, with GOOG peaking Nov 2021 and falling \~42%.
Fine to gamble up and down, but I sold some investments yesterday (TSM, MSFT)

Yeah definitely. You just can’t chase the obvious stuff. I bought TSM in early 2023 for $80-90 a share at insane forward PEs and even a decent dividend. Micron last year at $80 - $100 was similar.

Intel is fine. You gotta understand the power of operating leverage. Intel is a company that brings in 55b a year in revenue and only 5b of profit. They don’t need revenue to increase 100% to double their earnings. Fixed cost make up a massive amount of the operating costs. It means something like a 20% revenue jump can increase your profits by 2x.
There’s also the fact that intel foundry that has massive potential independent of AI. If you look at TSM who basically is the entire market, they depend on the entire market growing for themselves to grow. They don’t have any competition to steal market share from. But Intel on the other hand can grow faster than the broader market because they can play the game of talking market share away from competitors which is a strategy independent of AI

TSM has not rallied

I like TSM as more durable in the area

Supply is AMDs biggest issue. Industry wide , no one can get any CPUs. TSM is basically dictating how much a company can make by wafer allocation

I went with SOXX because my portfolio has a good bit of VOO and VXUS. SMH is more heavily weighted with NVDA and TSM, which I already have exposure to.

TSM, Samsung electronics and UMC are an opportunity IMO. Fabs have now a lot of pricing power

TSM is also going down in AH 🤣

yes TSM calls