Three foreign tech stocks to consider amid tariffs offer a valid alternative to U.S. equities that have been trending down lately.
The fallout from President’s Trump tariffs appears far from finished with negotiations involving the leaders of roughly 150 other countries still ahead. Investors who want to buy non-U.S. tech stocks to diversify their current holdings may be intrigued by the three featured in this column in the days, weeks and months ahead.
One of the foreign tech companies is the world’s largest dedicated independent semiconductor foundry. The other two foreign tech stocks are not as well-known but are carving out niches of their own.
Three Foreign Tech Stocks to Consider Amid Tariffs: Trump Time
President Donald J. Trump joined Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (NYSE: TSM) CEO C.C. Wei on March 4 to announce a historic $100 billion investment by TSMC in its Arizona-based semiconductor chips manufacturing operation — the largest foreign direct investment in U.S. history.
This investment, when combined with the company’s prior $65 billion commitment, will fund the construction of three semiconductor fabrication plants, advanced packaging facilities, and a research and development center. The expansion is expected to create tens of thousands of high-tech, high-paying jobs, positioning Arizona as a key production site in the global semiconductor industry.
The jobs created at TSM will require highly skilled workers, ranging from engineers to technicians, researchers, and advanced manufacturing specialists. These are the types of high-wage positions that can boost the Arizona economy and provide new job opportunities for its residents, according to Education Forward Arizona, a Section 501(c)(3) advocacy group.
The $100 billion in new investment will go into building five cutting-edge fabrication facilities in Arizona. In total, the announcement brings Taiwan Semiconductor’s investment in Arizona to about $165 billion.
TSM CEO C.C. Wei said that his company would produce many chips to support progress in artificial intelligence (AI) and smartphones.
Three Foreign Tech Stocks to Consider Amid Tariffs: U.S. Effect
“President Trump has made it a fundamental objective to bring semiconductor chip manufacturing home to America,” said U.S. Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick in a statement when the agreement was announced. Lutnick called TSM the world’s “greatest” semiconductor chip manufacturer.
Since taking office, President Trump has secured nearly $2 trillion in U.S.-based investment and is seeking to build upon it, White House officials reported.
Taiwan Semiconductor also is a major contract manufacturer of computer chips for other companies. Its headquarters and main operations are located in Hsinchu, Taiwan.
TSM is in a sweet spot, since China’s leaders don’t want to put tariffs on the company because to them its Chinese, said Robert Castellano, a semiconductor analyst who is one of the market specialists who teams up with technology futurist George Gilder on the Gilder’s Technology Report investment newsletter. President Trump doesn’t want to put tariffs on the company because it is investing more than $100 billion dollars in the United States, Castellano said.
“The time to buy is now,” Castellano counseled. “You can’t time the market.”
Mark Skousen, who heads the Forecasts & Strategies investment newsletter and the TNT Trader advisory service, recommended it in the latter on March 19, 2024, when it traded at $135.42, and advised its sale on May 31, 2024, for roughly $148.00, netting a 9.29% gain.
Mark Skousen leads the Forecasts & Strategies investment newsletter and TNT Trader.
Michelle Connell, the founder and head of Dallas-based Portia Capital Management, is a former semiconductor analyst who said it is tough to buy stocks “when everything is going down.”
However, money will be made by buying the higher quality names that have a “moat” or competitive edge, Connell counseled. TSM is tempting and meets those qualifications, she added.
Michelle Connell heads Portia Capital Management.
Three Foreign Tech Stocks to Consider Amid Tariffs: Good Guidance
The company’s first-quarter 2025 earnings beat expectations and its guidance was also much better than forecast with second-quarter revenue up 13% quarter over quarter at midpoint vs. the 7% predicted by JP Morgan, the investment firm wrote in an April 21 research note.
TSM has maintained its 2025 guidance, which may be an overhang, but the implied second half growth is the slowest in 10 years, which does reflect some caution regarding macro slowdown and tariffs, JP Morgan continued. The biggest positive from the call was that TSM’s Chairman and CEO, Dr. C.C. Wei summarily dispelled any involvement in a joint venture, technology transfer or IP sharing with any company, which might be Intel, leaving an overhang for the stock in the last two months, JP Morgan added.
TSM also indicated that its long-term forecasts for a 20% overall compound annual growth rate (CAGR) and mid-40% AI accelerator CAGR into 2029 remain intact, while keeping its FY capex guidance unchanged, JP Morgan noted. The stock should trade up in the near-term as management cleared the air on any joint venture involvement, although industry analysts may EPS estimates amid the market downturn, JP Morgan concluded.
Chart courtesy of stockcharts.com.
Three Foreign Tech Stocks to Consider Amid Tariffs: SK Hynix
SK Hynix (000660.KS) is a South Korean supplier of dynamic random-access memory (DRAM) semiconductor chips and flash memory chips. As one of the world’s largest semiconductor vendors, SK received recognition as a buying opportunity in Gilder’s Technology Report in December 2024 and remains a recommendation through the market pullback. The analysts with the publication have grown yet more enthusiastic since then.
SK is the leader in high bandwidth memory, or HBM, according to Gilder’s Technology Report. That breakthrough stopped memory capability from remaining a commodity with nightmarish cyclicality and turned it into a high-margin product, the publication’s analysts wrote.
“Long a top DRAM and NAND supplier, HBM has made the company into a critical supplier for AI accelerators,” Gilder’s Technology Report wrote.
Chart courtesy of yahoofinance.com.
SK Hynix supplies Nvidia Corp. (NASDAQ: NVDA), Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMD), and other artificial intelligence (AI) hardware providers, making it one of the best-positioned companies for AI memory demand, opined George Gilder, who leads the team of analysts at the Gilder’s Technology Report investment newsletter and the Gilder’s Moonshots advisory service.
The AI wind at SK’s back is gale force, Gilder added.
“Technology leaders will pull away like Secretariat in the homestretch at the Belmont; also-rans will fade like Sham, the next-best horse during the 1973 racing season,” according to Gilder’s Technology Report.
Paul Dykewicz poses with George Gilder, who heads Gilder’s Technology Report.
Foreign Tech Stocks to Consider Amid Tariffs: NVMI
Nova Ltd. (NASDAQ: NVMI), of Rehovot, Israel, provides metrology devices for advanced process control used in semiconductor manufacturing. Formerly known as Nova Measuring Instruments, the stock’s shares are traded on the NASDAQ Global Market and on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange.
Nova competes with Camtek (NASDAQ: CAMT) but has stronger exposure to AI-driven semiconductor packaging and EUV lithography inspection, making it an important part of the AI semiconductor supply chain, according to Gilder’s Technology Report. Nova’s tools are essential for AI chipmakers, HBM memory manufacturers and advanced logic nodes, Gilder’s Technology Report added.
“The stock is not astoundingly cheap; its forward PE of 26 is actually a few points higher than we would project, Gilder’s Technology Report opined. “But cash flow exceeds earnings and earnings are growing faster than revenues.”
Despite the AI winds at Nova’s back, NVMI faces risk for multiple compression for both PE and P/S. Gilder’s Technology Report cut its projected P/S from the current actual number of around 9.5 down to 8 to account for market volatility.
Chart courtesy of stockcharts.com.
Geopolitical Threats
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio cautioned on Friday, April 18, that the Trump administration will decide soon whether it will abandon efforts to broker a ceasefire agreement for the war in Ukraine. Prior to his reelection in November 2024, President Trump boasted he could arrange an end within 24 hours of taking office to Europe’s largest land conflict since World War II.
So far, those negotiations have not yielded much other than Russia backing away from committing to a ceasefire and intensifying attacks of civilian targets and engaging in murderous acts described as war crimes by Ukraine officials. For example, Russia armed forces showed their brutality recently by executing four Ukrainian prisoners of war after they surrendered and laid down their weapons.
“Such executions have become systemic, but each one is shocking in its brutality,” wrote Ukraine Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Heorhii Tykhyi on X, formerly known as Twitter. “These executions not only show that we are dealing with beasts. They also demonstrate that the Russian army is a gathering of degenerates. They lack basic discipline.”
Tykvhi called the killings a “war crime” that must be investigated, including by the International Criminal Court. All perpetrators must be held accountable, he added.
Slovakia’s President Peter Pellegrini called on Sunday, April 13, for the international community to increase pressure on Russia to bring it to the negotiating table rather than keep killing innocent people with missile strikes. The number of people killed that morning by Russia’s ballistic missile attack on Sumy, Ukraine, hit 34, including two children. In total, 117 people were injured, including 15 children.
U.S. special envoy to Ukraine Keith Kellogg said that Russia’s strike on civilian targets in Sumy crossed all acceptable lines and showed why President Donald Trump is trying to end the war.
Foreign ministers of European Union nations met in Luxembourg for a Foreign Affairs Council on April 14 to discuss security guarantees for Ukraine – including a potential monitoring mission – along with its 17th package of sanctions against Russia, among other forms of pressure.
Aside from military combat there and elsewhere in the world, tariffs add to the tumult. A baseline 10% tariff that went into effect on April 5 and remains in place for all affected imports into the United States. President Trump leadership style is aggressive, but he is voicing a willingness to negotiate with other heads of state. It remains unclear how many of them will accept his offer to forge new trade agreements.
Paul Dykewicz, www.pauldykewicz.com, is an award-winning journalist who has written for Dow Jones, the Wall Street Journal, Investor’s Business Daily, USA Today, the Journal of Commerce, Crain Communications, Seeking Alpha, Guru Focus and other publications and websites. Paul can be followed on Twitter @PaulDykewicz, and is the editor and a columnist at StockInvestor.com and DividendInvestor.com. He also serves as editorial director of Eagle Financial Publications in Washington, D.C. In that role, he edits monthly investment newsletters, time-sensitive trading alerts, free weekly e-letters and other reports. Previously, Paul served as business editor and a columnist at Baltimore’s Daily Record newspaper and as a reporter at the Baltimore Business Journal. Plus, Paul is the author of an inspirational book, “Holy Smokes! Golden Guidance from Notre Dame’s Championship Chaplain,” with a foreword by former national championship-winning football coach Lou Holtz. The uplifting book is endorsed by Joe Montana, Joe Theismann, Ara Parseghian, “Rocket” Ismail, Reggie Brooks, Dick Vitale and many other sports figures. To buy signed and specially dedicated copies, call 202-677-4457.
