The new dawn brought some new news from the White House for Asian indices. This time, after a flurry of tariffs across different avenues, Trump said that he is planning to impose an additional 25 per cent tariff on some crucial and strategically important products.
This includes a tariff on pharmaceuticals and automobiles, along with the all-important semiconductors.
The Chip Sector's New Headache
This has placated the trading of some of the biggest names in the industry. The likes of Foxconn, one of the biggest players in the smartphone market, along with TSMC, the largest maker of these chips have been trading with cuts in the intraday trade on Wednesday, February 19.
Semiconductors have become the new oil in the 21st century, with the designing and production of the product becoming a crucial aspect of many economies around the world.
The relevance of these semiconductors has only increased ever since the world was taken over the AI revolution, which has made advanced hips a prime commodity.
While Trump did not specify whether this would be a blanket tariff or whether specific companies or nations would be impacted, he said, that a formal announcement would happen on April 2.
TSMC
When we look at the status of the aforementioned companies at the equity market, the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company or TSMC saw its shares wavers a lot, while continuing to trade in red.
Foxconn
At the time of writing, the shares of the company witnessed and overall decline of 0.91 or TWD 10.00, taking the overall value to TWD 1,090.00 per share.
While Hon Hai Precision Industry Co Ltd or simply Foxconn fared better than TSMC, the company shares dipped, losing 0.27 per cent or TWD 0.50 of its total value, declining to TWD 183.00.
MediaTek
MediaTek, another major stakeholder in the industry had a different story to tell, as the company shares rose in value, increasing to TWD 1,540.00, after an uptick of TWD 5.00 or 0.33 per cent.
