TSM

We rate TSMC Avoid at $421 per ADR: our central fair value is $327, 22% below the price. TSMC makes almost every leading-edge chip in the world, and the AI build is running through its fabs: 3Q26 revenue was US$46.7B, up 41% in dollars, at a 58.7% operating margin, and management guides 4Q26 to US$52.3-54.3B. Our central case grows revenue to US$353B by 2031 (from US$176B in 2026) at a 54% operating margin, and is worth $327 per ADR at 15x 2032 operating profit after tax, a multiple below TSMC's own 2015-24 median (16.3x) because growth at exit is half what it was then. The price, $421, needs about the Street's 2028-29 earnings, which are 19-30% above ours (ours are 16-23% below) and match our bull case, or a 20x exit multiple on ours. The reviewers' best alternatives (Street revenue with held margins, a lower discount rate) reach $395 and $406, still below the price (section 9). We do not have an edge on AI demand; the gap is the Street's 2028-29 revenue. The call is Avoid at $421, Hold near $327-380, with the reasons it could be wrong in section 6.

Terms. Fair value is our estimate of what an ADR (a US-traded share certificate for 5 TSMC shares) is worth today. We value each company three ways. The central case is our best estimate, the bear case is a severe but plausible bad outcome, and the bull case is the matching good outcome. The exit price at the end of 2031 is the median of three estimates: a judged multiple of 2032 NOPAT (net operating profit after tax) that we set from TSMC's own history, the long fade (which lets growth and the return on new investment drift to long-run levels), and the outside view (the multiple that peers trade at). The Taiwan premium is the extra 1.5% we add to the cost of equity for Taiwan-specific risk. WACC is the weighted average cost of capital, the rate at which the whole business's cash flows are discounted. N2, N3 and A14 are TSMC's chip manufacturing generations, with N2 the newest in production. The Street means the analysts who follow the stock. Two reviewers checked the report: a model auditor, who looks for errors, and a Buy advocate, who argues for a higher value (section 9).

1. TSMC is a contract manufacturer with no second source at the leading edge

TSMC is a contract manufacturer. Chip designers (Nvidia, Apple, AMD, Broadcom, Qualcomm, hyperscalers' own chips) pay per wafer, and the price of a wafer rises with each node: 3Q26 wafer revenue was 8% N2, 33% N3, 28% N5, 10% N7, so 79% came from 7nm and below (6-K 2026-10-15). By platform, HPC (AI accelerators, server CPUs, networking) was 68%, smartphones 21%. Customers pay because there is no second source at the leading edge: Samsung and Intel trail by a node or more (management claim, 3Q26 call; our inference from the share of 7nm-and-below revenue). Advanced packaging (CoWoS) is the other bottleneck TSMC owns: "We are in the real-world production of 5x reticle size" (C.C. Wei, 3Q26 call).

What limits it is capital and geography. Machinery is depreciated over five years and buildings over 10-20 (20-F Note 4); capex was 31-54% of revenue in 2016-2025 and is US$60-64B in 2026, raised from US$52-56B in July. Customers now want capacity outside Taiwan: Arizona fab 2 starts volume production in 3Q27, Japan's second fab moves to N3 in 2028, and management expects overseas fabs to cut gross margin by "closer to 2%" now and 3-4 points "in the latter part of the five-year period" (3Q26 call). Customers also prepay for capacity: NT$234B of "temporary receipts" at 2026-06-30, refundable or offset against future sales (2Q26 statements Note 20). We treat them as a claim in the bridge.

Per-ADR cash flow is simple: almost no stock pay (NT$0.2B in 1H26), no buybacks, a quarterly dividend that management promises never to cut (NT$24 a share paid in 2026; NT$7 a quarter now), and a cash pile of NT$4.0T (US$124B) at 2026-09-30 against NT$1.03T of debt.

2. Recent results: TSMC has met or beaten the top of its revenue guide

Sources: 6-Ks of 2026-01-15, 2026-04-16, 2026-07-16 and 2026-10-15 (reported facts and management guidance). 3Q26 beat the top of the revenue guide by US$0.9B; gross margin fell 1.3 points from 2Q on the N2 ramp. Full year 2026 is guided "around 44%" in dollars; our 2026 is US$176.1B (+43.9%), using the 4Q midpoint. 2Q26 net income included a NT$63.2B gain on selling part of the Vanguard (VIS) stake (2Q26 statements, cash-flow statement), so the 2Q net margin of 55.6% overstates the run rate. The valuation uses operating profit only, and since the review 2026 net income (which sets 2027 dividends and the 2026 EPS of $17.01) excludes the gain too.

3. Our forecast and valuation: $327 at a judged 15x exit multiple

Model: model.py, output in output.txt, assumptions and sources in assumptions.md; returns and the reverse valuation (working back from the price) in unblinded.py and unblinded-output.txt.

The central case (our assumption, labelled in assumptions.md): revenue +30% in 2027 (about 3.5% a quarter from the 4Q26 guide), then +16%, +12%, +10%, +8%; 2029 revenue of US$297B is a 27% CAGR from 2024, above management's January framework of "approach 25%", because 2026 alone beat that framework by 15 points. Margin before depreciation goes from 72.8% in 2026 to 70%: overseas dilution and N2/A14 ramps against pricing. Capex is derived, not chosen: year-end plant is a set multiple of next year's revenue (0.67 at end-2026, rising to 0.80 as overseas fabs need more capital per wafer; it was 0.86-1.27 in 2016-24), and depreciation is 19% of opening plant plus 5% of the year's capex, which fits 2025 within 0.3%. Central capex is US$74-81B a year in 2027-32; bear US$40-64B; bull US$96-107B.

Capex is charged once, in the margin. (This is our check against counting the capex wave twice, a mistake made in an earlier Meta report.) Depreciation rises from US$25B (2026) to US$58B (2031) in the central case, which is what takes the operating margin from 58.6% to 53.7%; the capex wave is charged there, in the margin. The exit multiple and the fade then price the business that results, at a mature return on new capital taken from TSMC's own history, not from inside the build window: rise in NOPAT over capex less depreciation was 36% over 2016-2020 (one build cycle with five-year tools) and 47% over 2020-2025, against 38.6% on our own 2026-32 path. Those history figures include margin expansion; with each window's starting margin held, they are about 30% and 35% (the model auditor's figures; our rough check gives 28% and 36%). Our path figure includes margin decline, so it understates the path's capital efficiency. The central 35% is therefore at the top of the margin-held history, not inside it with room to spare. It drives only the long fade, which is not the median: at 30% the value is unchanged ($327).

The exit multiple is judged from TSMC's own history. The blind model called its 14x judged, but it was the value-driver formula (1 − g/RONIC)/(WACC − g) to two decimals (RONIC is return on new invested capital), which our valuation method (valuation.md) allows only as a cross-check. The evidence now is TSMC's own year-end enterprise value over the next year's NOPAT, 2015-2024 (market data key-metrics, fetched 2026-10-15; next-year NOPAT from our history, so it is hindsight, not consensus): 11.0x, 13.5x, 16.5x, 16.0x, 17.6x, 26.7x, 17.4x, 14.2x, 14.7x, 20.3x; median 16.3x, across the 2019 and 2023 downturns. TSMC at the end of 2031, in the central case, grows about 7% (half its 2016-2025 revenue growth of about 17% a year in NT$), still leads every node at a 54% operating margin, and reinvests about 13% of 2032 NOPAT. We judge 15x: below the median because growth is slower and the US 10-year is about 2.5 points above its 2015-2024 average (our recollection, not a fetched series), inside the 14.2-17.6x band of the middle six years because the franchise is stronger than it was. Bear 11x, the history's low (2015), for a foundry one year past a digest; bull 17.5x, the 2019 and 2021 level, for 9% growth at a 58% margin. The formula is printed only as a cross-check: 13.2x central (9.6x bear, 15.9x bull) with the Taiwan premium in WACC, 17.2x central without it. The judged 15x implies 6.6% perpetual growth at a 35% return, against 7.1% path growth in 2032 and 6.8% in 2033 (bear 11x implies 5.4% against 4.9%; bull 17.5x 7.4% against 8.7%). The bear's implied growth is above its path; at the formula's 9.6x the bear would be $150 rather than $164. The long fade lands 12-24% below the judged multiple in every case.

The bear's 20% mature return is above the bear path's in-window 11.2% only because that path contains a year of idle capacity (2028); 20% is below every TSMC build cycle on record. The bear carries three levers (lower growth, lower margin, lower multiple), all from the same AI downturn: at the central 15x on bear earnings it would be $205 rather than $164.

Taiwan risk is charged once, in the discount rate. Cost of equity 12.34% = US 10-year 5.081% + beta 1.28 x 4.5% + 1.5% for Taiwan; WACC 12.03%. Sources: the 10-year from TradingView (2026-10-15); beta 1.28 is the median of three published five-year ADR betas (Yahoo and StockCharts 1.23-1.28, cited by the auditor, not opened by us; TradingView 1.38, read 2026-10-15); the 4.5% equity premium is the house convention used in every 2026-10-15 report, with no dated source (Damodaran's 2026-01-05 mature premium is 4.23%, which would be +$5). No case contains a blockade or a war; the bear case is an AI-demand cycle.

The premium sits in the cost of equity for 2026-31 and in the long fade's WACC. The judged multiple is not lowered for Taiwan: it rests on TSMC's own multiples, which carry whatever discount the market applied in 2015-2024. So after 2031, the judged multiple (method 1) carries the market's historical view of Taiwan risk, not ours. The premium costs $23 per ADR ($350 without it, $327 with it), all of it in the 2026-31 discount. The alternative placement, the premium only in a lower multiple (15x x 13.2/17.2 = 11.6x, the formula's four turns) and none in the rate, gives $326; the placement barely matters, but the two must not be combined.

Three methods and their disagreement. The three methods are the judged multiple (method 1), the long fade (method 2) and the outside view (method 3). The judged multiple and the long fade sit 22% apart in the central case ($545 and $426); the fade is lower partly because it charges our 1.5% premium in every year after 2031. The outside view now uses forward multiples: the same six peers at the median of their price over consensus EPS for the fiscal year ending in 2027, 28.4x (market data, fetched 2026-10-15 19:37 UTC; ASML 30.0x, KLAC 31.8x, AMAT 23.2x, LRCX 29.4x, TXN 27.3x, ADI 24.4x), applied to TSMC's 2032 net income. It gives $953, 75% above the median (bear +119%, bull +54%). Two inputs drive the gap. The first is the discount rate: a 28x forward P/E is a 3.5% earnings yield, against our 12.03% WACC. The second is maturity: these peers' consensus EPS still grows 17-33% in fiscal 2028, while TSMC grows 7% at exit. We believe the judged multiple there; it uses TSMC's own record.

The bridge omits TSMC's net pension liability (NT$5.9B at 2026-06-30, 2Q26 statements) and guarantee deposits (NT$0.8B): about $0.04 per ADR, disclosed rather than changed.

Dividends. The blind model paid 25% of the prior year's net income, below every year on record: dividends paid over prior-year net income were 48%, 29%, 43%, 40% and 37% in 2022-2026 (market data cash-flow statements; 2026 is NT$24 a share, 2Q26 call). Management promises "a sustainable and steadily increasing cash dividend per share" (3Q26 call). The model now pays 40% of prior-year net income (the 2022-26 median), never cut and raised by at most 33% a year (the 2026 increase, the largest recent step), which keeps 2027 near NT$32 a share against NT$24 in 2026. Effect +$1.43: the cap binds for years, and cash kept still sits in the exit value. The auditor's point stands in part: $76 of the central exit price (was $89) is surplus cash earning 2.4% after tax while equity is discounted at 12.34%; paying all of it out as it arrives would be worth up to about $9 (our estimate, not run). We do not assume it, because management's stated policy is steady per-share increases, not distribution of surplus.

Sensitivities (from output.txt): judged multiple 12x / 14x / 16x / 18x at a 70% margin before depreciation, $275 / $310 / $344 / $379; a 64% / 74% margin at 14x, $277 / $331; revenue growth ±3 points a year, $289 / $370; capital intensity +0.15 every year, $302; TWD 10% stronger (about −4 points of margin), $302; Taiwan premium 0% / 3%, $350 / $306; mature return on new capital 20%→12% in the fade, no change (the fade is not the median).

Dividend withholding. Taiwan withholds 21% of every cash dividend paid to an ADR holder; the US has no tax treaty with Taiwan (20-F Item 10). A US taxpayer in a taxable account can usually credit it against US tax (not tax advice; holders should check). An IRA or other untaxed account cannot, and loses 21% of the dividends: $6.22 of fair value before 2031 (21% of the $29.63 present value of 2027-31 dividends) and about 0.5% a year after, at a 2.5% yield on the exit price. Headline values are before withholding, as all our reports are before shareholder taxes.

4. What the market expects: a 20.4x exit multiple or the Street's earnings

At $421.14 the market values TSMC at US$2.18T, or US$2.10T after US$84B of cash and investments net of debt, leases, prepayments and minorities: 19.4x our 2027 NOPAT, 24.8x our 2026 EPS ($17.01, without the VIS gain) and 19.7x our 2027 EPS ($21.39). Working back from the price (unblinded-output.txt): on our central earnings the price needs a 20.4x exit multiple, a level TSMC's own record reached only at the ends of 2020 and 2024; at our 15x it needs 2032 NOPAT of US$224B, 36% above our central US$165B and about our bull US$227B; or, on our earnings and multiple, a 9.37% cost of equity, below our rate even with no Taiwan premium (10.84%).

The Street (Street analyst estimates, translated at spot; Street estimates) has 2027 revenue US$228B, at our central (+1%); but 2028 US$289B and 2029 US$357B with EBIT margins of 57-59%, against our US$266B and US$297B at 54-55%. Its 2029 EPS of $33.69 per ADR equals our bull case ($33.00). The 2028-29 Street figures come from five and four analysts.

The price fell 2.1% today, from $430.00 (official close 2026-10-14) to $421.14 (19:01 UTC 2026-10-15), with SOXX down 1.8% ($519.42 to $510.01) and QQQ down 0.4% ($728.95 to $726.06) over the same span. Headlines today are a sector sell-off on AI-financing worries ("Chip selloff intensifies as investors question sustainability of AI spending", Seeking Alpha) as well as the 4Q margin guide. We read the move as mostly the sector, and did not measure day 5 or day 20.

Alpha, Capfolio's stock-ranking model, ranks TSM 241st of 709 (as of 2026-10-14), Above Average: good quality and growth, middling valuation (price-to-sales at the 19th percentile of peers is its top drag). It does not price country risk at all; it is a cross-sectional ranker, so it neither confirms nor contradicts our level.

5. Our view against the market's: the gap is mostly the Street's 2028-29 revenue

The market's thesis: TSMC compounds near 20% a year to 2029 with margins near today's, and Taiwan risk is small enough to ignore. Ours: the earnings path is a little lower than the Street's from 2028, because overseas fabs and the capex wave raise depreciation from 14% to 16% of revenue and growth decelerates as the AI build matures; and Taiwan risk is worth $23 per ADR in the five-year discount. The first point is now the bigger one: Street revenue for 2028-29 with held margins is worth $395, our bull case $494; no premium at all, $350.

What settles it: for earnings, the 2027 capex guide and the 2027 gross-margin path (January 2027) and whether 2028 revenue tracks above US$280B. For the premium, nothing settles it until something happens; it is a judgment about a tail, and the report gives its price so Dong can substitute his own.

6. Bear case, and why the other side could be right

The bear case ($164): the AI build digests in 2028, revenue falls 8%, margin before depreciation drops to 64%, and capacity built in 2027 for 2028 demand sits idle. TSMC's revenue has fallen in a year before (2023, −4.5% in NT$) while capex stayed near 44% of revenue.

Why the buyers at $421 could be right:

• No Taiwan premium is the right premium for an investor who holds through. TSMC has run without disruption for 39 years, its importance to the US and China is itself a deterrent (an argument, not a measured fact), and a growing share of new capacity is in Arizona and Japan. Damodaran's country premium for Taiwan is 0.78% (advocate's source, 2026-01-05). With his rates and the blind beta the value is $348.
• The Street's 2028-29 may be the most likely path. Management says AI accelerator growth "probably will be higher" than its mid-to-high-50s CAGR, N2 capacity will "more than double in 2027", three new N3 fabs start in 1H27, 3Q27 and 1H28, and "the demand is higher than the supply" (3Q26 call). A14 is drawing more customer activity than N2 did, and an analyst on the call cited reports of price rises across nodes. Street revenue for 2028-29 on our margins is worth $381; on a held 72% margin, $395; our bull case, which matches the Street, $494.
• Pricing. The CEO says "there is no ceiling for TSMC's profitability"; gross margin has held 66-68% through two quarters of N2 dilution.
• The multiple. TSMC traded at 20.3x next-year NOPAT at the end of 2024 and 26.7x at the end of 2020; the price needs 20.4x on our 2032 earnings.

Together, the advocate's discount rate and Street revenue give $406, still below the price; the bull case ($494), Street revenue with bull margins, is above it. The flip is the bull's earnings path: 2027 guided at +35% or more and 2028 tracking US$289-299B with margins held near 58%.

The assumption that matters most is revenue growth after 2027 (±3 points a year is −$38 / +$43). The second is the judged exit multiple (about $17 a turn).

7. Dates to watch, and what would prove us wrong

Dates to watch:

• 2026-11-10 (approximate; TSMC files monthly revenue around the 10th): October revenue against a 4Q run rate of about US$17.8B a month.
• 2026-12-10: ADS ex-dividend for NT$7.0 (paid 2027-01-07).
• About 2027-01-14 (expected, not confirmed by TSMC): 4Q26 results, 2027 revenue outlook and 2027 capex budget. Our 2027: revenue US$229B, capex about US$76B, operating margin 57.6%.

Forecasts in record.json for 4Q26 (graded on the results day): revenue US$54.3B (range 52.8-55.8), gross margin 66.5% (65.5-67.5%), operating margin 58.0% (56.8-59.3%). Revenue sits at the top of the guide because TSMC met or beat the top in each of the last three quarters; the margins sit half a point above the guide's midpoints because the guide assumes NT$31.8 per dollar and the TWD is 1.7% weaker today (about +0.7 points on our 4-points-per-10% rule). The model itself uses the guide midpoint (US$53.3B); a US$1B higher base lifts every later year by 0.6%, about $2 of fair value (our estimate; not run).

Falsifiers:

• 2027 revenue guided at or above +35% in dollars with a gross margin at or above 64%: our central earnings are too low; move toward the bull case ($494), and with 2028 tracking US$289B, to $381-395 on our discount rate.
• 2027 capex guided above US$90B without a matching revenue guide (above +35%): capital intensity is rising faster than modelled; toward $302 (intensity +0.15).
• Any quarterly revenue decline in 2027 or 2028, or gross margin below 60%: bear case.
• A change in cross-strait risk (sanctions, blockade drills that halt shipping, or a durable agreement) moves the premium: $350 at 0%, $306 at 3%.

8. Problems with our tools for a foreign filer

Our tools were built for US companies that file 10-Ks and 10-Qs. TSM is our first foreign filer (it files 20-F annual reports and 6-K interim reports). Each item was checked by this analyst unless marked otherwise.

1. Market data statements mix currencies and share units. reportedCurrency is TWD, but EPS is per ADR in NT$ (2025: 333.05 = 5 x 66.61) and share counts are in ADR units (5.19B). The EPS matches neither the company's TIFRS EPS (NT$66.25) nor the 20-F's IFRS EPS (NT$65.47). Confirmed against the 6-Ks and the 20-F.
2. Market data figures are wrong for TSM in places. 2025 revenue NT$3,848.5B against 3,809.05B (20-F); 4Q25 revenue 1,056.0 against 1,046.09 (6-K); 1Q26 operating income 657.3 against 658.97; quarterly D&A is erratic (2Q25 188 against about 165 in the quarters around it). The vendor's 2025 annual operating income (1,955.7) is 1% above the 20-F's 1,936.1. Earlier years (2023-24) match. Not used for 2025-26.
3. Street analyst estimates are NT$ with per-ADR EPS in NT$. A US-dollar comparison needs an exchange rate the estimates do not carry; at spot, Street 2026 revenue is US$167.8B against a company guide that implies about US$176B.
4. The SEC second source skips foreign filers. src/alpha/data/sec_statements/filer_class.py classifies 20-F, 40-F and 6-K filers as FOREIGN_OR_CANADIAN, and the statement fetch and the income-statement reconciliation accept only 10-Q and 10-K forms. So TSM's market data fundamentals, including the errors in items 1-2, reach Alpha, Capfolio's stock-ranking model, unchecked. Read in code; the effect on TSM's rank was not measured. (The model's valuation features do convert currency through an FX table, src/alpha/services/model/features/valuation.py; that part handles foreign filers.)
5. The record has no currency, ADR ratio or exchange rate. record.json (loaded by record.py) holds bare numbers. This record gives US dollars per ADR by convention and states the rate only in prose. It cannot express: the reporting currency (NT$), the ADR ratio (5), the exchange rate and its date, or that dividends are withheld at 21%.
6. Two accounting standards for one company. Quarterly 6-Ks are TIFRS (Taiwan's IFRS), the 20-F is IFRS as issued by the IASB; they differ on when the 5% surtax on undistributed earnings is booked (2025 tax rate 16% against 17.0%; EPS NT$66.25 against 65.47). Our analyst instructions and research-eval checks assume one set of statements.
7. Our analyst instructions, research-eval checks and review procedure name 10-Q and 10-K. The analyst skill's step 1 ("the latest 10-Q or 10-K notes"), research-eval check S2 ("checked against the latest 10-Q or 10-K") and review.md all do. A 20-F filer's quarterly notes arrive in a separate 6-K weeks after the release (2Q26 statements on 2026-08-14); there are no 3Q26 notes yet, so the bridge uses 2026-06-30 notes for leases, prepayments and minorities.
8. No convention for country risk, ADR ratio or withholding. valuation.md builds the cost of equity from the US 10-year and a beta; it says nothing about country risk, depositary ratios or dividend withholding. This report added a 1.5% premium and charged it once.
9. Street fiscal labels again. TradingView's "next year" EPS (17.07) and revenue (US$171.8B) are fiscal 2026, the current year, as with Broadcom (AVGO).

9. Review and revisions: blind $313 became $327

One review round (a model auditor and a Buy advocate, started by the research coordinator), then three corrections from the coordinator that enforce rules in valuation.md the draft broke (L1-L3). Finding IDs below: A is the auditor's, B the advocate's, AQ the auditor's dividend question and L the coordinator's rule corrections. Every change is in model.py and priced in the "Review walk" and "Reviewer alternatives" blocks of output.txt; the walk applies each change on top of the one before. The blind central value was $313.34; the revised one is $326.89.

Net: $313 to $327. The two material changes went opposite ways: the sourced beta −$18 (away from the price), the judged multiple +$31 (toward it, on TSMC's own record). View unchanged: Avoid, with the central value 22% below the price and a 6.8% five-year return against the 12% hurdle. Purchase price $332 sits above fair value because the 12% hurdle is below the 12.34% cost of equity.

Checks after revision: our automated report check (scripts/research-check.py) gave six PASS and one WARN (purchase price above fair value, explained above). Research-eval, our evaluation of the basics, ran five coherence checks, run by this analyst: (a) the judged multiples imply 6.6% / 5.4% / 7.4% growth against path growth in 2033 of 6.8% / 4.9% / 8.7%; the bear's 0.5-point excess is small and stated in section 3, PASS; (b) mature returns from TSMC's history across two build cycles, margin-held caveat disclosed, PASS; (c) the bear's three levers are one AI downturn, explained, PASS; (d) the outside view is 54-119% from the median and both inputs behind the gap (discount rate, peers' faster growth) are named, PASS; (e) the bear's 20% mature return is above its 11.2% path and explained, PASS. Warning signs the evaluation looks for: one was raised (the bear lowers growth, margin and multiple together; at the central 15x it is $205). The others cleared: the material changes went both ways, the value moved 4.3% net, three methods are printed with the multiple judged, and five more checks cleared.

10. Tooling problems met while writing this report

• The file-writing tool refused report.md from a helper agent; written through a printf stub and Edit, as the lesson from an earlier Amazon (AMZN) report says.
• The pre-commit secret scanner flagged base64 images embedded in the EDGAR release HTML; the releases are saved as text with images removed.
• The pre-push lint refused blank lines at the end of the saved transcripts; stripped and amended before the push.
• The coding environment's guard refused compound shell commands and inline programs; every helper went into .tmp/*.py.
• The vendor's TSM data cost the most time: every figure had to be checked against the 6-K or the 20-F (section 8).
• EDGAR worked first time with EDGAR_IDENTITY; TradingView's Quartr transcripts for 4Q25, 2Q26 and 3Q26 were available the same day as the call and carry no price levels.
• Found late: nothing material. The 20-F's restricted-stock and treasury notes and the many Form 4 filings were deliberately not opened before the blind commit, because they carry share prices.

11. Sources (all read 2026-10-15)

• SEC EDGAR, CIK 1046179: 6-K 0001046179-26-000726 (3Q26 release and slides), -000451 (2Q26), -000199 (1Q26), -000008 (4Q25), -000541 (2Q26 reviewed statements), -000274 and -000536 (board resolutions, dividends); 20-F 0001628280-26-025362 (FY2025, filed 2026-04-16).
• Quartr call transcripts via TradingView: 4Q25 (2026-01-15), 2Q26 (2026-07-16), 3Q26 (2026-10-15); saved in data/.
• Market data statements and analyst estimates (uv run alpha market-data fetch), peer ratios-ttm; saved in data/. After review: TSM key-metrics and ratios annual (12:35 PDT) and peer quote and analyst-estimates (19:37 UTC), saved in data/ and data/peers-forward/. The vendor's TSM enterprise values are in NT$; whether they use the Taiwan share price or the ADR was not checked.
• Robinhood quotes and analyst ratings, TradingView forecasts and news, TradingView FX and yields: data/quotes-2026-10-15.json, data/market-inputs.txt.
• Alpha, Capfolio's stock-ranking model: scripts/readonly-data-run.sh uv run alpha rank TSM --raw --json --allow-stale-model-cache and alpha ticker analyze TSM --signals --json.