Taiwan outpaces South Korea in AI trade 1st since 2000
Taiwan is now a stronger bet in the AI trade, outpacing South Korea for the first time in years.
The Taiex Index, which tracks top Taiwanese stocks, beat South Korea's Kospi by about 23% points last quarter, a big deal since it hasn't happened since 2000.
Fund managers are noticing too: about 40% of the fund managers surveyed by Bank of America Corp. last month said they were overweight Taiwan, versus 25% for Korea.
Taiex up 72% on AI exposure
Unlike South Korea, which mainly relies on giants like Samsung and SK Hynix, Taiwan has exposure across chip design and manufacturing, packaging, networking, and servers.
This broad reach helped push the Taiex Index up by a massive 72% this year, among more than 90 equity indexes tracked by Bloomberg.
Experts say Taiwan's deeper linkages across the AI supply chain and a more upbeat earnings outlook are keeping Taiwan ahead, even as competition from China heats up.