Daily Buzz: 16 October 2026

TSMC's Q3 Profit, Revenue Exceed Market Forecasts

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing (TSMC), the world's largest contract chipmaker, posted a ‌69 percent surge in third-quarter net profit, beating market forecasts on soaring global demand for its AI processors.

The company, a supplier to Nvidia and Apple, reported profit of NT$763 billion (US$23.6 billion), its sixth straight quarterly record. Revenue rose 50 percent to NT$1.5 trillion, also beating forecasts. TSMC's operating margin came in at 58.7 percent, highlighting the company's pricing power amid booming global AI chip demand. Its 3-nanometer chips accounted for a third of company revenue, followed by 5-nanometer and 7-nanometer chips. By platform, high-performance computing accounted for the largest share of revenue at 68 percent, followed by smartphones at 21 percent. The company's free cash flow surged to NT$476.6 billion from NT$139.4 billion a year ago.

On an earnings call, TSMC Chief Executive C.C. Wei said his company would step in to support customers facing advanced chip packaging supply constraints from competitors such as Intel. Wei said TSMC is already producing 5x reticle-size packages with excellent yields, and is developing 9x and 14x solutions, while working to reduce costs. TSMC raised its 2026 revenue forecast to 44 percent growth, while cautioning about economic uncertainty heading into 2027.

Will US Roll Out 'Mother of All Bombs' Against Iran?

The US military has developed new strike plans that include potentially using the so-called "mother of all bombs" - its largest non-nuclear weapon - to target Iranian nuclear sites should US President Donald Trump decide to resume combat operations after the midterm elections on November 3, CNN reported. It would be the first time the GBU-43/B Massive Ordnance Air Blast Bomb is deployed in the Iran war, although analysts expressed doubts about the ability to destroy Iranian nuclear facilities buried deep in mountains. Trump has said the US won't strike Iran before the US election, where the unpopular war has become a campaign issue, but he has said that Iran better accept US peace proposals or face dire consequences

Elon Musk Blames White House for Lapses in Intelligence to Ukraine

Elon Musk said any disruptions in US intelligence transmitted to Ukraine via SpaceX's Starlink internet network is down to the White House, not him. The government, he says, controls the Starshield, military-grade sister service to Starlink. Ukrainian officials say they are failing to get usual US intelligence on timing and locations of Russian missile and drone strikes because of a speed cap imposed on the technology. It occurred after a spat erupted between US President Donald Trump and his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky over Kiev's strikes on Russian refineries that feed into diesel supplies. Musk urged the Trump administration to restore full-speed connectivity. "Removing Starshield's speed limit entirely is now critical for Ukraine's defense," he said in an online post. "I hope that it's a mistake." Zelensky said on Thursday that Ukraine will resume attacks on Russian refineries amid stepped up strikes on Ukraine's energy grid by Moscow since Trump announced a "ceasefire" that never materialized.

Trump Rescinds Livestreaming of Military Execution

US President Donald Trump called off contentious plans to livestream the execution by firing squad of former army major Nida Hasa, who shot dead 13 people and wounded dozens of others at Fort Hood in 2009. The livestreaming, announced last week by US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, drew widespread condemnation at home and abroad. "I think streaming the execution for all to see might have been a strong deterrent for the world to witness how America deals with terrorists and scum like Hasan," Trump wrote in an online post. "But many good and well-meaning people would rather not watch." The execution, scheduled in December, will be the first military execution in the US in 60 years.

LandSpace Launches 10 Chinese Satellites Into Orbit

LandSpace Technology, a private Chinese rocket launch service provider, sent eight computing test satellites and two communications test satellites into planned orbits, adding to the 10 satellites it launched into space less than a month ago. The Zhuque-2E rocket carried eight satellites developed by Guoxing Aerospace Technology and two next-generation laser data transmission test satellites developed by Lanta Intelligence.

Top Business

Double 11 Shopping Festival Kicks Off Amid Regulatory Bans on Price Wars

China's Double 11 shopping festival has begun, with major players Alibaba, JD.com and Douyin all launching pre-sale campaigns with divergent strategies. Alibaba's Tmall is betting on AI capabilities and flagship-store brand resources, offering a record 1 million brands and 72 million products for sale. JD scrapped its deposit-based pre-sale model in favor of direct price cuts, while expanding into lifestyle services and content ecosystems. Douyin is extending its coupon distribution beyond its main app to ByteDance content platforms including Doubao and Hongguo short dramas. Ahead of the festival, Chinese authorities issued rules targeting disorderly practices such as "automatic price-matching" and "lowest-price-on-the-internet" claims, drawing red lines for price wars.

The festival is the biggest online shopping extravaganza in the world. It's also called the Single's Day Festival because it started in 1993 on a China university campus, where students exchanged gifts to celebrate their unmarried status. Alibaba seized the concept and began a one-day sales event on November 11, but the event has since expanded into a multi-week shopping spree.

AI models this year will be joining the festival alongside traditional consumer goods. Chinese AI startup MiniMax has opened its first official Tmall flagship store, with a limited-time promotion that gives first-time monthly subscribers a 50 percent discount. Other Chinese AI providers, including Zhipu and Alibaba Cloud and Qwen services have launched similar offers on Tmall. Alibaba has introduced an AI subscription hub, dubbed AI Space Station, allowing consumers and businesses to purchase AI services and effectively "stock up on AI tokens."

Mild Recovery in US Tech Stocks May Stretch to Asia Today

Tech stocks in the US and Europe calmed down on Thursday after some steep slides this week, though analysts noted a trend of investors rotating out of AI-related shares into consumer stocks like healthcare. The tech heavy Nasdaq eked out a 0.8 percent gain after spending most of the day in the red, portending what could be more upbeat trading in Asia today for tech stocks thrashed yesterday. A selloff on Wall Street this week was triggered by surging yields on bonds issued by US AI startup CoreWeave, with Bloomberg reporting the odds of default at 60 percent. Rising interest rates are trouble for AI companies relying on debt to finance ambitious, costly development. "The sharp falls indicate fragile confidence among investors around the world, who require solid evidence of how AI can generate value instead of just hype," said Yang Chao, an analyst at China's Galaxy Securities.

In Asian trading on Thursday, South Korea and Japan sustained the biggest losses. The chip-heavy Kospi in Seoul plunged 7.6 percent, with Samsung Electronics, the world's largest memory chipmaker slumping 9.5 percent. Tokyo's Nikkei lost 4.9 percent. In Chinese markets, losses were more subdued. the Shanghai Composite Index fell 1.6 percent, with its Nasdaq-style Star Market 50 index off 1.5 percent. The tech-heavy ChiNext index in Shenzhen shed 2.9 percent. Hong Kong's Hang Seng lost 1 percent, with investors concerned about the prospect of higher US interest rates, which flow to the city because its currency is tied to the US dollar. The Hang Seng tech index fell 2.7 percent. Among losing Chinese stocks were ChangXin Memory Technologies (CXMT), China's top memory chipmaker, which fell 5.2 percent. Alibaba was down 3.7 percent, Cambricon Technologies lost 3.4 percent and Semiconductor Manufacturing International shed almost 4 percent.

Anthropic Had Q3 Revenue of US$16.9 Billion, Insiders Say

US AI giant Anthropic told investors its adjusted third-quarter revenue stood at US$16.8 billion, multiple media outlets reported, citing people familiar with a closed-door meeting between the company and potential investors ahead of what is expected to be a record initial public offering in New York next month. The reports said revenue rose from US$11.6 billion in the second quarter and from US$4.7 billion. Anthropic also told investors it was cash-flow positive, generating US$1.70 in revenue for every dollar spent on computing power during the third quarter. Investors expect Anthropic to reach annualized revenue of US$110 billion by year's end. The company is said to be aiming for a US$2 trillion valuation for its IPO.

Transsion Stumbles in Trading Debut in Hong Kong

Shares in China's Transsion Holdings, the biggest mobile phone seller in Africa, fell 5.7 percent from their offer price in their trading debut in Hong Kong on Thursday, following an initial public offering that raised HK$2.97 billion (US$378 million). Transsion said the proceeds will be used for AI-related research and development. The company sells under the major mobile phone brands Tencno, Infinix and Itel, mostly in emerging markets. In Africa, it accounts for almost half of all mobile sales. In the first half of the year, the company posted revenue of 35.4 billion yuan (US$5.3 billion), up 22 percent from a year earlier, and profit of about 1.5 billion yuan.

Economy & Markets

New Bank Lending in China Rises Faster Than Forecast

New bank lending in China in September rose more than expected, with banks extending 1.08 trillion yuan (US$161.37 billion) in new loans, a sharp rise from 60 billion yuan in August. The pickup in lending suggests Beijing's latest stimulus push to energize the economy may be gaining traction. However, household loans, including mortgages, were flat in September after a contraction of 202.9 billion yuan in August, according to Reuters calculations. Corporate loans surged to 1.3 trillion yuan from 260 billion yuan in August. Outstanding yuan loans increased 4.8 percent from a year earlier to a record low. For the first nine months of the year, new loans totaled 11.5 trillion yuan.

Chinese Central Banker Calls for 'Dynamic' Equilibrium in Global Economy

People's Bank of China Governor Pan Gongsheng, attending the IMF-World Bank meetings this week in Bangkok, urged a "more comprehensive analytical perspective" regarding global imbalances. He called for looking beyond global trade-imbalance figures and exchange-rate adjustments to focus on money flows through financial channels, according to a statement by the central bank. Countries with trade deficits or surpluses need to work together for a "dynamic" equilibrium in the global economy, Pan said.

Also attending the global forum is Iranian central bank Governor Abdolnaser Hemmati, who denied US claims that Iran's economy is collapsing. He said the bank is prioritizing foreign currency allocation for pharmaceuticals and essential goods. Iran's access to foreign currency has been hurt by a US blockade on ports that export oil. The bank also has to grapple with inflation that hit 74 percent last month.

New World Expects to Issue US$189 Million in Bonds Under Debt Swap

New World Development, a leading Hong Kong property developer with extensive holdings on the Chinese mainland, said it expects to issue about US$189 million in new secured notes due 2032 after receiving sufficient tenders during the early phase of its bond-exchange offer. The company announced plans last week to launch an initiative allowing creditors to swap bonds due in 2027 and 2028 for debt maturing in 2032. New World is one of Hong Kong's most indebted property developers and is working to restructure debt incurred during a property downturn.

Han's CNC Signals Tripling in Nine-Month Profit

Han's CNC Technology, a leading Chinese maker of printed circuit boards, reported preliminary net profit for the first nine months of this year tripled from a year earlier to 1.5 billion yuan (US$224 million) on a doubling of revenue to 7.8 billion yuan. The company attributed the growth in demand for high-end AI boards, including high-layer HCI boards for computing and switching units of next-generation rack servers. It said it has seized market opportunities arising from capacity expansion by downstream customers.

China Buys First US Soybeans Since Summit

Chinese state-owned buyers purchased up to 10 cargoes of US soybeans this week, marking the first such deals since a September summit between Chinese President Xi Jinping and US President Donald Trump, Reuters reported. Soybeans have been a sore spot in bilaterial trade since China last year diverted most of its soybean purchases to South America, though it has been slowly returning to US markets. Buyers were paying premiums of US$3.10 to US$3.20 per bushel over the Chicago Board of Trade's January soybean contract, one US trader said. China had bought about 13.7 million metric tons of US soybeans before the latest deals, more than halfway toward a 25-million-ton target for the 2026-27 harvest year announced by the White House.

Corporate

SK Hynix Ties Construction of US Plant to Chip-Gear Exports to China

South Korea's SK Hynix said its plans to build a factory in the US are conditioned on Washington's allowing exports of US chipmaking equipment to its plants in China. Solidigm, the US unit of SK Hynix, wants to install new equipment to produce NAND chips in unused space at a factory in the northeastern Chinese city of Dalian. The flash memory chips are used in solid-state drives installed in data centers for AI and cloud computing.

The US has restricted exports of chipmaking equipment to China in a bid to slow Beijing's development of cutting-edge semiconductors.

Shanghai's Silicon Photonics Firm Clears IPO Review

Shanghai-based Xphor has cleared its IPO review by the Shanghai Stock Exchange, paving the way for a planned 1.8-billion-yuan (US$273 million) public share floatation. The company, founded in 2021, develops silicon photonic integrated chips used in AI computing infrastructure and data centers. It shipped more than 12 million silicon photonic chips by August, with Frost & Sullivan estimating it holds about 13 percent of the global market.

ByteDance in Talks to Purchase Microchips From MediaTek, Reports Say

AI giant ByteDance is in advanced negotiations with Taiwan's MediaTek to purchase custom application-specific integrated circuit microchips for its data centers, media reports said. The deal would make ByteDance MediaTek's second major customer for the chips after Alphabet's Google. The talks come as US export restrictions block Chinese companies from acquiring Nvidia's most advanced processors, forcing ByteDance to diversify its chip-supply chain. MediaTek said it expects its AI chip sales to reach about US$2 billion this year,

Huaneng Power Reports Drop in Electricity Sales

China's Huaneng Power International reported third-quarter electricity sales of 113.32 billion kilowatt-hours, a 9.9 percent decrease from a year earlier. For the first nine months of the year, sales fell 5.6 percent. The company cited increased nationwide output of renewable energy sources and a lower proportion of installed coal-fired capacity weighing on overall volumes. It also said electricity sales networks are struggling under lower retail pricing.

Chinese Robotics Startup Raises US$147 Million

Shenzhen-based DexForce raised 1 billion yuan (US$147 million) in a fundraising round, taking its valuation beyond10 billion yuan. Backed by Lenovo Capital and Lens Technology, the company uses synthetic data to train robots. Its technology is deployed by manufacturers including Toyota, Samsung and Foxconn.

DeepSeek Investigating Server Breakdown

AI startup DeepSeek said it has identified the root cause of a server breakdown that disrupted its popular chatbot and application programming interface services for almost five hours on Thursday. It was one of DeepSeek's worst outages this year. The company had about 129 million monthly active users as of June, ranking third among China's AI-native apps.

Qingyue Tech Fined for Reporting Violations, Faces Delisting

Suzhou-based Qingyue Technology has been fined 172 million yuan (US$25.7 million) by the China Securities Regulatory Commission for inflating profits and fabricated sales in IPO documents and periodic reports. Prior to the regulatory ruling, the company's stock had already triggered mandatory delisting procedures after its closing price remained below 1 yuan in Shanghai for 20 consecutive trading days.