TSMC Printed the Cycle's Best Quarter — the Tape Has Been Selling Records All Week
TSMC answered with everything — $40.2 billion in revenue at the very top of its own guide, both margins above their guided ranges, a 77% profit jump to a record — and the first tick was red: the ADR indicated about one percent lower, into a morning where Seoul had already sold the memory chain hard. That is this week's tape in one line: record numbers, reluctant buyers. Behind it, Wednesday broke the 554 semiconductor floor intraday and closed back above it, the rotation found its rate story, and gold still cannot get off the 4,000 line. The day in ten.
TSMC's Q2 cleared every bar it set: $40.2 billion in revenue at the very top of its own guide, EPS of $4.31 against estimates near $3.90, gross margin of 67.7% above the guided range, and net profit up 77% to a record NT$706.6 billion — the fifth straight record quarter. Then the call delivered the number this diary called load-bearing: 2026 capex raised to $60–64 billion from $52–56 billion, full-year revenue growth lifted to over 40%, another $100 billion committed to Arizona — management citing structural demand 'including the newly emerging agentic AI market.' The wafers answered the tools. And the tape sold all of it: Seoul closed the Kospi down 6.4% with SK Hynix off 11.5% into the release, and by midday Europe the ADR traded 4.2% lower in the premarket — on the biggest good-news package a foundry can print. That reaction is the live test of the distribution pattern this diary has tracked all week, and so far the sellers are answering it. The close grades the print; Friday decides the week; Sunday scores it.