Trump win to clear uncertainties on U.S., Taiwan markets: Analysts

Taipei, Nov. 6 (CNA) Local analysts said Wednesday that they expect political uncertainties weighing on stock markets in Taiwan and the United States to clear with Donald Trump's election as U.S. president.

U.S. stock markets futures jumped on election night Tuesday (local time), and pushed prices of stocks traded in Taiwan higher during Wednesday's trading session, when American media outlets' projections put Trump in the lead in the race for White House, Capital Investment Management Corp. executive Rico Fan (范振鴻) said.

Market heavyweight Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC) saw particularly strong buying and led gains for the Taiex, the Taiwan Stock Exchange's benchmark index, Fan said, noting that trading of some stocks showed investors' reacting to Trump's looming victory.

TSMC stock prices hit an intra-session high of NT$1,080 (US$33.46) at around 11 a.m. in Taipei, as well as Taiex, which touched the day's high of 23,439.39. TSMC closed 0.95 percent higher at NT$1,060, with Taiex rising 0.48 percent to close at 23,127.38.

As to Trump's recent remarks about imposing tariffs on foreign chipmakers and singling out Taiwan for stealing chip business from the United States, Fan said it remained to be seen if the U.S. president-elect would follow through on these comments.

If Trump imposes tariffs on TSMC products supplied on contract, the chipmakers' U.S. customers will end up bearing the higher costs, Fan added.

Meanwhile, Cathy Futures Consultant analyst Tsai Ming-han (蔡明翰) said the American and Taiwanese stock markets pulled back during the July-September period because of concerns over weakened growth in the U.S. and worries that artificial intelligence (AI) is another tech bubble.

Those concerns have been eased, Tsai said, as recent statistics indicated that the U.S. economy remains robust, while top cloud computing service providers, including Amazon Web Services, Microsoft, and Google's parent company Alphabet, all announced new AI investments during the ongoing earnings season in the U.S.

As of 7:45 p.m., several media outlets in the U.S., including NBC News, ABC News, CBS News, CNN and the Associated Press, had declared Trump as the winner in the U.S. presidential election, after he surpassed the 270 electoral votes needed to become the leader of the world's largest economy.