Taiwan’s November 6 stock rout was the Asian-market shockwave of a Wall Street selloff in AI-linked shares. TSMC touched its daily lower limit and the TAIEX briefly lost 3,737.67 points—its largest intraday point drop on record—before recovering some ground by the close.
3
5
What happened to TSMC and the TAIEX
TSMC fell as much as 9.8% during trading, close to Taiwan’s roughly 10% daily limit, then recovered to finish down 4.7%, according to reporting on the session.
3
8 The TAIEX dropped to an intraday low of 37,837.05, then closed at 39,701.64, down 1,873.08 points, or 4.51%.
3
9
The intraday point loss was much larger than the closing decline because the index clawed back part of its early fall. The record describes the number of points lost at the session low; it does not mean the market finished down by that amount.
3
9
The losses extended an already difficult stretch for Taiwan’s market. On November 5, the TAIEX fell 3.2%, extending its losing streak to six sessions.
4 The index therefore entered the November 6 shock after several days of declines, while Wall Street’s tech selloff and falls in other Asian markets added fresh pressure.
4
5
Why AI fears became a Taiwan market rout
The immediate trigger was a reassessment of the AI investment outlook after Democrats won control of the U.S. Congress in the midterm elections. Investors feared that a Democratic-led Congress could bring tougher AI regulation or slow data-center development, threatening expectations for chip demand. Those were investor concerns, not evidence that new restrictions had already taken effect.
18
48
The concerns landed alongside questions about whether massive AI investments would generate sufficient returns. As investors pulled back from chipmakers, margin calls rippled across Asia, adding forced selling to the market’s existing losses.
18 In a leveraged position, falling prices can prompt demands for more collateral; if investors cannot meet them, they may have to sell, potentially deepening the decline. The reporting identifies margin calls as part of the episode, but does not quantify how much of Taiwan’s fall they caused.
18
Losses across U.S. and Taiwanese technology stocks
The selloff began in the United States on November 5. The Nasdaq Composite fell 5.5%, its steepest one-day decline in 19 months, and entered correction territory. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index dropped more than 12%.
27
48
In Taiwan, TSMC’s sharp intraday fall was followed by losses for other electronics companies. Hon Hai Precision Industry, also known as Foxconn, fell 9.4%, while Foxconn Technology fell 9.1%, according to reported figures.
40 The available reporting cited here does not establish comparable November 6 closing losses for other Taiwanese chipmakers such as MediaTek or ASE.
How the shock spread—and what happened next
The selloff moved into Asia after Wall Street’s losses, with sharp declines in Japan and South Korea adding to the pressure facing Taiwan.
5 Across markets, investors were also moving toward government bonds as a safe haven.
18
20
Taiwan’s authorities announced short-selling curbs to take effect November 9, while the Finance Ministry said it was prepared to deploy the NT$500 billion stock-stabilization fund.
1 The policy steps came after a week in which the benchmark recorded its worst performance in a quarter century.
1
The selling did not continue in a straight line. U.S. chip stocks and the Nasdaq rebounded on November 6, but the Nasdaq was still headed for a fourth consecutive weekly decline.
17 That partial recovery offers an important qualification: the Taiwan plunge reflected a fast repricing of AI and technology risks, not a single, uninterrupted global decline.