US Stocks Continue to Rise; Investment Advisory: Taiwan Stocks Focus on TSMC's March Revenue, Investor Conference

With renewed hope for Middle East peace talks as Israel agrees to direct negotiations with Lebanon, US stock markets continued to rise. The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed up 275.88 points or 0.58% at 48185.80 points on the 9th; the S&P 500 index rose 41.85 points or 0.62% to 6824.66 points; the Nasdaq index rose 187.43 points or 0.83% to 22822.42 points; and the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index surged 178.62 points or 2.10% to 8689.53 points. Taiwan stocks fluctuated around the flat line on the 9th, with bellwether TSMC making a last-minute surge of 15 NT dollars, leading the weighted index from red to green, closing up 99.78 points at 34861.16 points, with a turnover of NT$844.286 billion. The three major institutional investors collectively bought NT$39.436 billion, of which proprietary traders bought NT$6.196 billion, investment trusts bought NT$1.461 billion, and foreign investors and mainland Chinese investors bought NT$31.779 billion, marking three consecutive trading days of net buying. In terms of industry news, with the continuous increase in demand for artificial intelligence (AI) data centers, power supply giant Delta Electronics announced March revenue of NT$59.779 billion, a month-on-month increase of 19.8% and a year-on-year increase of 37.6%, surpassing the historical record of NT$57.383 billion set in October last year, reaching a new single-month high. Contract manufacturer Compal benefited from PC brand manufacturers actively pulling in shipments ahead of schedule, coupled with strong performance of non-PC products such as servers, with consolidated March revenue reaching NT$89.198 billion, a month-on-month increase of 69.1% and a year-on-year increase of 17%, setting a new 41-month high. Computer brand manufacturer ASUS's consolidated group revenue for March was approximately NT$86.084 billion, a month-on-month increase of 58.4% and a year-on-year increase of 33.9%, setting a new single-month historical high; Acer's consolidated March revenue reached NT$29.896 billion, a month-on-month increase of 39.3% and a year-on-year increase of 2.1%, a new high for the same period since the pandemic. Low-orbit satellite and millimeter-wave communication component manufacturer StarPoint Technology saw significant overall revenue growth due to continued increased shipments of low-orbit satellite related products, with March revenue reaching NT$329 million, a month-on-month increase of 2.1% and a year-on-year increase of 36.3%, setting the second-highest single-month historical record.