Taiwan Stocks Suffer Third-Largest Foreign Selloff as Korea Tumbles

Taiwan’s benchmark stock index fell 1.95% Tuesday, breaking below 49,000 as a sharp selloff in South Korean equities and semiconductor shares intensified risk aversion across Asian markets.

The Taiex ended down 960.65 points at 48,341.31 after falling as much as 1,235 points during the session. Trading volume reached about NT$1.12 trillion.

Foreign investors sold NT$165.342 billion of Taiwan-listed shares, their third-largest single-day net selling total on record. The combined net selling by Taiwan’s three major institutional investor groups reached NT$198.446 billion, while domestic investment funds bought more than NT$23.8 billion.

Technology heavyweights led the decline. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. fell NT$50 and closed below NT$2,500. Shares tied to memory chips also dropped despite positive earnings and outlook details from Nanya Technology.

South Korea’s KOSPI briefly plunged more than 7%, led lower by Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix. Tom Lee, chief investment officer at Fundstrat and chairman of Bitmine, warned that the equity selloff could spread to cryptocurrency markets.

Market participants are watching Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing’s earnings briefing scheduled for Oct. 15 for further signals on the region’s technology sector.