TAIPEI (TVBS News) — Taiwan's stock market surged to a record high on Wednesday (Jan. 28), closing up 485.9 points at 32,803.82 points, marking a 1.5 percent increase driven by semiconductor gains. Trading volume reached NT$830.993 billion (around US$26.6 billion), with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC, 台積電) and Macronix (旺宏) leading the rally. The benchmark Taiwan Capitalization Weighted Stock Index, the island's main stock indicator, posted its strongest single-day gain in recent weeks.
TSMC's share price rose NT$40 to NT$1,820 (around US$58.33), breaking new ground and pushing its market capitalization past NT$47 trillion (around US$1.5 trillion). The chipmaker's gains contributed approximately 321 points to the overall market increase, underscoring its dominant influence on Taiwan's benchmark index. Macronix hit the daily limit at NT$83.8 (around US$2.69), driven by its NT$22 billion (around US$705 million) investment to expand production amid expectations of improved operations this year.
MediaTek (聯發科), ASE (日月光投控), and Delta Electronics (台達電) also benefited from price increases, boosting the electronics subindex by 1.81 percent. The Ministry of Health and Welfare's Centers for Disease Control announced on Tuesday (Jan. 27) plans to classify Nipah Virus Infection as a Category 5 notifiable disease by mid-March. This announcement sent pandemic-related stocks, including Nan Liu Enterprise (南六), Mao Bao (毛寶), and Radiant Innovation (熱映), to their daily limits.
Among the eight major subindexes, the chemical and electrical machinery subindex climbed 1.83 percent, while the food subindex dipped 0.08 percent. Traditional industry stocks showed mixed results, with the cable subindex rising 3.83 percent and the textile subindex falling 0.94 percent. The top five stocks by trading volume included Innolux (群創), UMC (聯電), Powerchip (力積電), Walsin Lihwa (華新), and Macronix, reflecting broad investor interest across the semiconductor and electronics sectors. ◼ (At time of reporting, US$1 equals approximately NT$31.2)