Taiwan Market Report: August 2026

In mid-July, a sharp sell-off interrupted what had been a steady market. The TAIEX fell from 45,625 to 39,933 over nine trading sessions — a drawdown of about 12.5% — with 17 July alone dropping 6.5%, close to 3,000 points, a single day the market rarely sees. The decline did not last long: the index rebounded 8.0% on 31 July, kept recovering through August, and closed at 46,331 on 28 August, up 16.0% from the 30 July low.

Put back into a longer frame, though, the base of that rebound is narrower than it looks. 46,331 is still about 1.5% below the early-July level of 47,019 — the market has not clawed back all of July's losses — and, more to the point, the recovery in the index has run ahead of the fundamentals. Over the same period, median monthly-revenue growth among listed companies was a healthy 15.6% year over year, yet roughly one company in four still reported a decline. An index near its prior high sits on top of a fundamentally uneven base.

Taiwan equities are quite sensitive to the currency, and FX and capital flows are outside the data covered in this report. Within what we can observe, this recovery has been driven mainly by revenue momentum concentrated in the technology chain, alongside a warm business-cycle signal — not by a broad-based rebound. The sections below break down the index, turnover, fundamentals, sectors and the cycle, and set out what to watch in September.

What happened to the index?

July's sell-off and August's recovery were the only story of these two months. From the 16 July high to the 39,933 low on 30 July, the TAIEX fell 12.5% in under two weeks; measured from the early-July 47,019, the drop was 15.1%. The decline was concentrated in a handful of violent sessions — 17 July alone erased 2,954 points.

The turn was just as fast. The index rebounded 8.0% (+3,186 points) on 31 July, August carried that momentum, and the month (31 Jul to 28 Aug) closed up 7.5%, a 16.0% gain off the low. The rebound slowed after mid-month, however: August still had several sessions down more than 1% (18, 19 and 24 August), which is not a one-way trend but a market grinding higher through volatility. The recovery is substantial but has not made a new high — 28 August's 46,331 remains below the early-July peak.

What did turnover say?

Turnover moved in step with price. August's single-day turnover peaked at NT$1.20 trillion on 5 August, when the index rose 2.88%; the low was NT$651.9 billion on 24 August, a pullback session. By month-end, turnover was back to NT$1.06 trillion on volume of 11.06 billion shares.

The rebound was led by rising turnover rather than a low-volume drift, one structural feature of this recovery. But turnover thinned to NT$650–750 billion mid-month, a sign of buyers turning cautious once the index had climbed. Whether volume and price stay in step is one signal worth watching next.

Did fundamentals keep up?

Taking the latest available period (July 2026, filed by statute before the 10th of the following month), median monthly-revenue growth across 1,073 companies with comparable figures was 15.6% year over year. The 75th percentile reached 38.4%, and the 90th and 95th percentiles hit 79.8% and 133.6% — the top end is running hot.

But the other side of the same distribution: the 25th percentile is −0.1%, and roughly a quarter of companies posted negative year-over-year revenue. The distribution is clearly right-skewed and split: a healthy median, a hot top end, a contracting bottom. This is the point worth holding on to — the recovery in the index is narrow-based. An index near its prior high, paired with a quarter of companies still shrinking, means the momentum is concentrated in a few strong names rather than a broad recovery. Companies without a comparable month are left blank, not filled with a zero.

Which sectors drove it?

Break the momentum above down by sector (market-cap weighted) and the concentration is clearer still. Electronic components posted aggregate revenue growth of 80.0% year over year, and semiconductors 60.3% — the two carried this period's revenue growth almost single-handedly. Financials, by contrast, grew just 9.1%, and traditional industries were more muted.

That is consistent with the narrow-based read: what lifted the index was the technology chain, not an across-the-board gain. Companies without an official market cap are excluded, not counted as zero; where a whole sector has no data, no figure is shown.

Where is the business cycle?

Taiwan's official business-cycle signal (the NDC monitoring indicator, running cold to hot as blue, yellow-blue, green, yellow-red, red) has warmed steadily over the past year. Mid-2025 (May–August) was green, a stable expansion; September to November 2025 turned yellow-red; and from December 2025 through the latest available reading, April 2026, it has flashed red — an active, arguably overheating, cycle. That warm backdrop echoes the technology chain's strong revenue.

Two honest limits apply: the monitoring indicator is published with a lag of about a month, so May–August 2026 are not yet reflected here; and this source keeps only the revised value, with no original publication date, so it is fit for describing where the cycle stands today, not for use as a point-in-time input to a backtest.

What to watch in September

August left a few open questions that September's data will answer step by step — but the direction depends on how those questions resolve, not on anything that can be forecast in advance.

The first hard number is August monthly revenue, filed by statute by around 10 September. The question is whether the split narrows or widens: if July's gap — a healthy median but a quarter contracting — persists, the base of the rebound remains narrow; and whether the electronic-components and semiconductor momentum continues will decide whether this recovery has fundamental support.

Second is whether volume and price stay in step. Turnover returned above the trillion mark late in August; if the index keeps advancing but turnover cannot hold there, that is usually a sign buyers have not followed. Last is the volatility structure — July produced single sessions of −6.5% and +8.0%, and volatility after a sharp sell-off usually takes time to subside; treating those extreme bars as risk that has already occurred and needs managing is sounder than assuming they were a one-off.

Methodology

The data in this report is a snapshot as of 28 August 2026 (Taiwan time). Index and turnover come from the official TWSE MI_INDEX and FMTQIK, with the trading day as the knowledge date; monthly revenue comes from MOPS, with the earliest statutory filing date as the knowledge date — different clocks, marked separately. Percentiles and sector aggregates are computed in-house for the same period, excluding companies without an official market cap and never substituting a zero; companies without a comparable month are left blank. The business-cycle signal is a revised value and is not point-in-time. FX, capital flows and broker-level order flow are outside the scope of this report and are not substituted with other figures. Every row carries its official source and a per-row inclusion proof you can verify yourself; historical figures may change through source revision or recalculation.