Semiconductor shares rebounded sharply early in the U.S. session on the 6th, clawing back the previous day's plunge. According to Taiwan's United Daily News (UDN), the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index rose about 6% and the TSMC ADR about 8%, but the Dow alone was weaker, and a strong jobs report added to interest-rate pressure.
UDN reported at 10:50 p.m. Taiwan time on the 6th that early in the U.S. session the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index was up about 6% and the TSMC ADR up nearly 8%. At that moment the Nasdaq Composite gained 1.8% and the S&P 500 0.9%, while the Dow fell 186 points (0.4%), the only index in the red. These are early-session figures that may differ from the close, which has not been confirmed.
광고 문의 · 300×250The day before, on the 5th, U.S. stocks fell sharply. UDN said the Nasdaq dropped 5.5%, entering a correction of more than 10% from its high, while the S&P 500 fell 4.4% and the Dow 3.4%, the biggest declines since April 2025. Micron fell about 17% and Nvidia about 9%, then bounced roughly 10% and 7% respectively on the 6th, per UDN.
The trigger was the U.S. midterm elections. UDN and the Kyunghyang Shinmun reported that after the Democrats' big win, fears spread that AI data centers could face tighter rules over power and environmental burdens, and that Texas's incoming governor said construction should pause until rules are in place. The reasoning that less data-center investment means weaker chip demand drove the selling.
Strong jobs data weighs; Korea had already sunk 6%
UDN said U.S. nonfarm payrolls for October, released on the 6th, rose by 165,000 against a market forecast of 59,000, and the unemployment rate fell to 4.1%. Strong hiring lowers expectations of rate cuts and pushes up Treasury yields; the same report said the 10-year yield climbed to 4.88%, capping stock gains. Some link the Dow's lone decline to this rate pressure, but UDN did not state the causation directly.
Meanwhile, South Korean stocks took a heavy hit before the U.S. rebound. According to a Kyunghyang Shinmun editorial, the KOSPI closed down 6.02% at 5,059.69 on the 6th after falling more than 8% early and triggering a circuit breaker, with Samsung Electronics down 6.35% and SK Hynix down 10.44%. How the early U.S. bounce will carry into Korean and Taiwanese markets after the weekend cannot be confirmed.
In Taiwan, outlets such as the Liberty Times reported that TSMC is weighing production of advanced memory such as 3D DRAM at Nvidia's request, but the company has not confirmed it, so it remains an unverified report. The chip industry faces two uncertainties at once: whether the AI investment cycle will last, and U.S. political variables. Caution remains in the market that a single day's rebound is too little to define a trend.