Taiwan and South Korea move to halt Asia chip rout: short-sale curbs, $15B stabilization fund; Taiex jumps ~5.8%

What happened

Taiwan's government moved over the weekend to arrest the rout in its stock market, and the measures took effect on Monday, November 9. The Financial Supervisory Commission cut the cap on intraday short-sale orders for borrowed shares to 3% of a stock's 30-day average daily volume, down from 30%, and raised the minimum margin for short sales to 130% from 90%, while encouraging buybacks. At an emergency meeting on Friday afternoon, the National Financial Stabilization Fund authorized its tenth-ever market-rescue operation, putting NT$500 billion (about $15 billion) on standby to buy stocks. The Taiex surged as much as 6.7% intraday and stood up 5.79% at 42,001.22 in midday trading, its biggest one-day gain since July 31, ending a seven-session losing streak; TSMC gained about 4.7%, MediaTek more than 4% and Foxconn about 6.5%. South Korea acted in parallel, suspending the margin-loan collateral rule that forces brokers to liquidate leveraged retail accounts; SK Hynix gained about 4.6% and Samsung about 2.4%. Nasdaq 100 futures, down about 0.8% at Sunday's open on the Nvidia probe news, recovered to roughly flat by Monday morning.

Who’s affected

• TSMC (TSM): gained about 4.7% in Taipei; the world's largest contract chipmaker and Nvidia/Apple supplier is the direct beneficiary of the stabilization measures and the halt in forced selling
• Nvidia (NVDA): the AI bellwether whose shares were indicated about 3.4% lower in overnight trading on the board probe; a stabilized Asian chip tape removes one leg of the selloff pressure, though the probe overhang remains
• Memory chipmakers (Micron MU, SK Hynix, Samsung, SanDisk): SK Hynix gained about 4.6% and Samsung about 2.4% as investors judged the memory selloff excessive; Goldman Sachs' AI memory basket had fallen 51% from its June peak
• Broadcom (AVGO), AMD (AMD), and the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index (SOX): U.S. chip names that led Friday's partial rebound and track the same AI-infrastructure sentiment the intervention is trying to steady
• Foxconn (Hon Hai): gained about 6.5% in Taipei alongside the broader Taiwan rebound

Sources

xtb.comlongbridge.comfinance.biggo.comwealthhubtrading.com