For those not in the know, an ADR is a paper trick cooked up by US banks that lets the cocaine nose jobs of Wall Street punt on foreign shares without fiddling about with overseas markets. In this case it means Americans can trade TSMC stock on the New York Stock Exchange without wiring cash to Taipei. The ADR is sitting at a 24.9 per cent premium compared with Taipei.

In Taiwan, TSMC opened at 1,275 yuan (€36.80) before a late-session frenzy saw 6,537 buy orders push the price up by 20 yuan to close at 1,285 yuan (€37.10). That set a fresh closing record and gave the company a market value of 33.3234 trillion yuan (€962 billion). The rise added about 165 points to the wider index.

The move came after the US Federal Reserve cut rates by a quarter point, which gave Taiwan’s markets a shot in the arm. The benchmark opened at 25,543.17 and ended the day at 25,769.36 points, up 331.11 points or 1.3 per cent, another record close.

TSMC’s August revenue reached 335.772 billion yuan (€9.69 billion), up 3.9 per cent on the month and 33.8 per cent year on year. That made it the company’s second-highest monthly haul ever, just behind April’s 349.567 billion yuan (€10.08 billion). Cumulative revenue for the first eight months hit 2.4319 trillion yuan (€70.17 billion), a jump of 37.1 per cent compared with last year.

The company previously told investors it expected third-quarter revenue between $31.8 billion and $33 billion, up around eight per cent quarter on quarter at the midpoint, based on an exchange rate of NT$29 to the dollar.

TSMC has started mass production of its 2nm process in the second half of this year and plans to ramp volumes in 2025. Reports claim that at least two of the Fruity Cargo Cult Apple’s upcoming chips will use TSMC’s advanced packaging, and Job’s Mob has already secured half of next year’s N2 output.