Taiwanese retail investors are aggressively borrowing through margin trading to invest in TSMC-led AI stocks, pushing margin debt to its highest level since September 2000, Bloomberg reported on June 23, 2026. The market's overheating is fueling fears of a bubble.
June 2026 · Taiwan Equities
Taiwan Becomes the Capital of Leveraged AI-Stock Bets
A TSMC-led AI rally has more than doubled Taiwan's market in a year — but retail investors are borrowing record sums to chase it, and margin debt is approaching dot-com-bubble levels.
+116%
TSMC shares, past 12 months
40%+
TSMC's share of the whole index
$4.95T
Market value — world's 5th largest
Margin debt: up 160% to a 25-year high
Debt-financed buying has surged back toward levels last seen in the 2000 dot-com bubble.
One single-day jump: NT$21.3B (~$680M) · total increase over $13B
NT$2B+
Investor defaults in June 2026 — over 2× the prior month and the highest since records began in 2019.
7×
Broker bond issuance in 2026 (~$1.2B) versus the prior year, as firms ramp up lending.
The frenzy on the ground
"FOMO really got me" — Taiwanese retail investors are going deep into debt to ride a 100%+ rally.
An unemployed 26-year-old holds ~$60,000 in tech stocks bought with borrowed money.
A 39-year-old influencer took out an NT$5M loan (~$158,300) in May 2026 out of FOMO.
April 2026: cap on a single stock's weight in equity funds eased to 25%, concentrating bets in TSMC.
Rushes to open accounts, website outages, and brokers hitting lending limits.
Bulls
Younger investors argue the AI boom is real — TSMC's quarterly results remain solid on AI chip demand, largely for NVIDIA.
Caution
Dachrahn Wu of National Central University warns the market is "clearly overheated" — if leverage unwinds in a correction, young investors face devastating losses.
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