Asian semiconductor stocks rose broadly as investors shifted their focus away from geopolitical tensions and back to the continued surge in artificial intelligence-related demand.
Over the past two months, chip stocks in the region had underperformed due to concerns that conflict in the Middle East could lead to sharp increases in energy costs and shortages of raw materials.
However, over the last two weeks, a series of strong earnings reports from major Asian chip companies, including Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing and SK Hynix, have reignited investor interest in AI-themed stocks.
In early trading on Monday, shares of South Korea's major chipmakers Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix were up 2.5% and 6.3%, respectively. As the world's largest memory chipmakers, these two firms account for more than 40% of the market capitalization of the Korea Composite Stock Price Index (Kospi), and their gains helped push the benchmark index up more than 2%.
In Taiwan, shares of the world's largest contract chipmaker, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing, surged as much as 6.6%, driving the local benchmark Taiex index to briefly surpass the 40,000-point mark for the first time.
In Japan, Tokyo Electron rose 2.7% and Kioxia climbed 5.35%. In Hong Kong, SMIC and HUA HONG SEMI advanced 7.2% and 5.0%, respectively.
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