TAIPEI: Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co suffered its worst-ever selloff by foreign equity investors last month, amid a global rotation out of the leaders of the artificial intelligence boom.
Overseas funds sold US$5.8 billion of the Taipei-listed stock on a net basis in July, the most for any month in data compiled by Bloomberg going back through 2008.
Shares of the world’s largest contract chipmaker — a key partner of Nvidia Corp — fell 3.3% in July amid worries over the sustainability of AI-related gains as well as concerns over China and US ties. That broke a record of nine-straight monthly gains through June that drove the stock up 85%.
“We expect investors to focus more on the geopolitical risk of investing in TSMC as we get closer to the US elections, particularly in the absence of significant positive developments from the AI sector in the near term,” said Gary Tan, a portfolio manager at Allspring Global Investments.