Earnings Ring the Bell: AI Trade Still Has Juice

Reuters, Business Insider, CNBC, Investor’s Business Daily, and Bloomberg contributed to this report.

Earnings season opened with a clear message for Wall Street’s favorite theme: AI isn’t slowing down.

Chip kingmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing lit the fuse Thursday, hiking its full-year outlook and flagging even bigger AI spending as it posted $33.1 billion in third-quarter revenue — up 40.8% from a year ago and 10% from the prior quarter, with net income climbing 13.6% sequentially. CEO C.C. Wei called it plainly: the “AI megatrend is strengthening.”

Traders took the hint. Stocks pushed higher after the bell, with semis setting the tone. By mid-morning, the S&P 500 was modestly green, the Dow was up a touch, and the Nasdaq outpaced both. Nvidia and Broadcom added roughly a percent as investors leaned back into the AI supply chain that TSMC anchors.

The print also helped the market look past a noisy macro backdrop. Fresh tariff saber-rattling and talk of tighter controls on rare earths have kept US–China tensions front and center, while Washington’s shutdown has gummed up key economic data and kept volatility elevated. Even so, the week’s scorecard looked solid heading into the afternoon, with the S&P 500 up nearly 1% since Friday.

Away from chips, Big Tech updates added some lift — Salesforce sketched out a return to double-digit revenue growth later this decade — while banks’ better-than-expected results earlier in the week steadied nerves. Not everyone’s buying the “AI all the way” story; technicians warn the rally remains concentrated in a handful of giants. But with TSMC raising guidance and marquee partners still cutting deals across the data-center stack, the first big earnings signal of the season says the AI trade is very much alive.