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TSMC Reports Q3 Earnings [pdf]

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Re: TSMC Reports Q3 Earnings [pdf]

#61
post #26
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Their stock is falling because of future demand issues coming up with the whole semiconductor industry. Just this week, expanded export bans to China were announced and are an uncertainty on how much volume will be impacted in the future, because no one knows what will get an exemption or not.

Also the long-term uncertainty of Taiwan's political situation will continue to weigh on TSMC's stock price. For example, investors may be afraid that there might be some ominous signals coming at this week's National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party, held every five years.

>Also the long-term uncertainty of Taiwan's political situation

Republic of China move to Taiwan since 1945. that's over 70+ years. that's one person born and into retired age.

you can question every country on Earth for its long term uncertainty. North Korea constantly shoot off Nukes. Russia is invading Ukraine now. Saudi and Yemen.

American just recently left Afghanistan to Taliban after 20+ yrs of Nation building.

70+ yrs peaceful times in Taiwan with some up and down with China seem pretty stable to me.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiwan#Republic_of_China_(1945...

edit: even USA have some long term uncertainty after Jan 6 (United States Capitol attack or protest?) Trump-backed election deniers is about to be elected into the US Congress.

Re: TSMC Reports Q3 Earnings [pdf]

#62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A large chunk of experts see China as the likely next world superpower. The USA, current world superpower, probably can't prevent that happening, but they can make moves to delay it. We'll see. Lots of people thought Japan would overtake the US as well, and that didn't exactly pan out. China has some real problems between the legacy of their one child policy and their current real estate investment crisis. It's cer…

I agree. I was of the view that China could be the next super power and overtake the US. But two things changed my view:- 1. COVID and their response to it. China still does not have a good vaccine and they still rely on lockdowns. That speaks a lot to how backward China is in basic sciences. 2. The move to remove term limits for the president. History tells us that one person can’t be relied on to make good long ter…

> COVID and their response to it. China still does not have a good vaccine and they still rely on lockdowns. That speaks a lot to how backward China is in basic sciences.

I think this was a policy move more than a lack of science understanding. In fact, leadership in China is very science-heavy. Time will tell, but it's actually looking like possibly a good move, now that 5% of the UK population is not working due to long term sickness, the highest ever[1], and covid is looking like a contributory factor.

I could even imagine China extending their lockdown policy to other diseases which might have long term population-wide effects, like influenza.

The main downside of such a policy is you need to have effectively closed borders forever, otherwise travellers re-introduce diseases from other countries into yours.

[1]: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-63204333

Re: TSMC Reports Q3 Earnings [pdf]

#63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China has the fastest aging population in recorded human history, along with some of the worst demographics. What exact advantages do you see in that?

I think China could easily fix their demographics if they wanted to. They have sufficient control of their population that if they said "everyone of child bearing age must try for a child this year and next", they'd probably double their population within 2 years. The 'demographic problem' is only a problem because they don't see it as an issue worth fixing.

I think this is wildly off base.

Lots of them don’t want to have kids. The government has many ways to influence the public. But I don’t think it’s true to say that they have so much control over their populace that they could do anything like double their population in 20 years, let alone 2.

People in China are just people, right? Many of them don’t want to have kids. What’s the government gonna do?

Of course, hypothetically, the government blocks people from leaving the country and literally forces them to procreate but that’s getting a bit imaginative (it would be turning the China that exists today into something very different).

Realistically I think the government is worried about their demographic problem and is using every reasonable tool in their arsenal to attempt to address it.

Re: TSMC Reports Q3 Earnings [pdf]

#64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> less for some (like oil and gas) If worldwide carbon caps and tariffs become a thing, the oil and gas in the ground suddenly becomes nearly worthless if you can't use it. Whereas China has a huge amount of not-good-for-much desert and mountains which could become a solar powerhouse.

> If worldwide carbon caps and tariffs become a thing, the oil and gas in the ground suddenly becomes nearly worthless if you can't use it. It may be worth less, but it won't be worthless. I have a hard time seeing another fuel source for long distance aviation (although we may move to synthesized fuel in the future). Companies will also need feedstock for plastics - that use won't be affected by carbon caps at all.

Those tariffs are also a joke in and of itself. As we can already from the oil price cap idea you can only enforce things when the world plays along, but looks increasingly like the global south is fed up by these dictates. So good luck enforcing carbon caps and tariffs when the majority of the world population doesn't play along.

You can still have them, but ultimately it's the people in western societies that will pay the price with their own pensions and social services gradually degrading.

Re: TSMC Reports Q3 Earnings [pdf]

#65
post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China overtaking the US seems a lot more likely based on sheer numbers. China’s population is over 4x larger than that of the US. So China “just” needs to reach a GDP per capita of 25% to have a larger economy than the US. This metric has been growing rapidly in the past decade or two and from a rough search, seems to currently stand around 17-18% of the US’s figure. Of course GDP isn’t the only factor in world power…

> less for some (like oil and gas) If worldwide carbon caps and tariffs become a thing, the oil and gas in the ground suddenly becomes nearly worthless if you can't use it. Whereas China has a huge amount of not-good-for-much desert and mountains which could become a solar powerhouse.

>If worldwide carbon caps and tariffs become a thing, the oil and gas in the ground suddenly becomes nearly worthless if you can't use it.

2nd and 3rd world countries are going to bathe in cheap oil when/if the 1st world bans it.

How do you plan on enforcing the bans globally?

Re: TSMC Reports Q3 Earnings [pdf]

#66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China has the fastest aging population in recorded human history, along with some of the worst demographics. What exact advantages do you see in that?

I think China could easily fix their demographics if they wanted to. They have sufficient control of their population that if they said "everyone of child bearing age must try for a child this year and next", they'd probably double their population within 2 years. The 'demographic problem' is only a problem because they don't see it as an issue worth fixing.

Any developed country could fix its demographics problem with a stroke of a pen - provide housing to young family.

We've studied this, n1 reason peolle dont have kids is housing.

The housing crisis has done more damage to western economy than the black plague.

> they'd probably double their population within 2 years.

you are conveniently forgetting that children take 20 years before they can work??

Re: TSMC Reports Q3 Earnings [pdf]

#67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A large chunk of experts see China as the likely next world superpower. The USA, current world superpower, probably can't prevent that happening, but they can make moves to delay it. We'll see. Lots of people thought Japan would overtake the US as well, and that didn't exactly pan out. China has some real problems between the legacy of their one child policy and their current real estate investment crisis. It's cer…

I agree. I was of the view that China could be the next super power and overtake the US. But two things changed my view:- 1. COVID and their response to it. China still does not have a good vaccine and they still rely on lockdowns. That speaks a lot to how backward China is in basic sciences. 2. The move to remove term limits for the president. History tells us that one person can’t be relied on to make good long ter…

China's covid response was extremely damaging to China, but thanks to the US and their allies response to Russia, China has received plenty of intermediary free money to add to their economy. Cheaper energy, and arbitration returns from Russian goods to western economies for a premium. Ultimately China will find a way to cope without the products from the west. Europe however cannot cope without the cheap goods from China and the cheap energy from Russia.

India is by the way the only major economy that is projected to grow over 6% next year. That's largely due to profiting off of resell of Russian goods.

The problem is that people conflate their own moral standing with actual factual realities and unfortunately it will cost _us_ dearly.

Re: TSMC Reports Q3 Earnings [pdf]

#68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I imagine the Raytheon/Lockheed/etc. crowd does want increased military tensions with China to justify bloated MIC budgets into the foreseeable future, and of course that's one of the few manufacturing centers in the US that hasn't been heavily outsourced to sweatshop labor zones. It's not very productive in the long run, however - for example, a tank is only 'economically productive' if your economic model is based…

War is a general consequence of monetary system problems, so just blaming it on the military wanting to be bigger (which is true for every organization) doesn't look totally at the big picture. I love Shelling out: The origins of money blog post from Nick Szabo as it's a great explanation of how having a hard monetary system with small inflation shared by everybody the parties to be more peaceful. US had a trade rela…

China has reduced some of its holdings of treasuries (<10%), but still have a trillion dollars worth. They are diversifying, but they still hold a ton of USD.

Re: TSMC Reports Q3 Earnings [pdf]

#69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

War is a general consequence of monetary system problems, so just blaming it on the military wanting to be bigger (which is true for every organization) doesn't look totally at the big picture. I love Shelling out: The origins of money blog post from Nick Szabo as it's a great explanation of how having a hard monetary system with small inflation shared by everybody the parties to be more peaceful. US had a trade rela…

China has reduced some of its holdings of treasuries (<10%), but still have a trillion dollars worth. They are diversifying, but they still hold a ton of USD.

I guess they can't dump it all at once, but the current US policy won't help.

Re: TSMC Reports Q3 Earnings [pdf]

#70
post #59
post #2

> Gross margin for the quarter was 60.4%, operating margin was 50.6%, and net profit margin was 45.8%. Still surprised how profitable TSMC is. Especially as this seems to be below the market expectations (their stock is still falling).

> their stock is still falling Which one's aren't falling? That's a shorter list.

This is a simple but important point. It's easy to overindex on the idea that a declining stock price means something is wrong with the specific company. But you look at stocks across the board (there is literally an ETF for pretty much every investable country now) and you can see that most stocks across the board are declining at the moment.
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