Jim Cramer Quips About Joe Biden's TSMC Chips Sanction As Nvidia Supplier Beats Q4 Estimates

CNBC’s Jim Cramer took to the social media platform X to endorse Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co.’s TSM strong fourth-quarter earnings while taking a jibe at outgoing president Joe Biden‘s sanctions on the chipmaker.

What Happened: Nvidia Corp.’s NVDA chip supplier TSMC beat its fourth-quarter revenue and earnings per share estimates on Thursday, “telling an excellent story,” according to Cramer’s X post.

However, Cramer added flavor to his observation by stating “what semi-sanction will Biden pull out of the hat next!”

Taiwan Semi telling an excellent story that is good for NVDA, too, but what semi-sanction will Biden pull out of the hat next!!!
— Jim Cramer (@jimcramer) January 16, 2025

TSMC delivered earnings of $2.24 per share on revenue of $26.88 billion. The EPS was 3.70% higher, whereas the revenue was 1.91% higher as compared to estimates.

The earnings also beat revenue guidance of $25.8 billion, whereas the gross margin for the quarter was in line with 59% growth guided by the company.

Why It Matters: On Wednesday, the Biden administration placed over two dozen Chinese entities on a U.S. trade restriction list, including Zhipu AI, a developer of large language models, and Sophgo, a company whose TSMC-manufactured chip was unlawfully integrated into a Huawei AI processor, reported Reuters.

Additionally, the Commerce Department enhanced controls on chip exports to China to more effectively prevent diversion to Huawei.

Price Action: TSMC’s stock was up 3.14% in premarket to $213.44 on Thursday. Over the past year, it has experienced a notable growth of 103.40%.

TSMC has a consensus price target of $200.8, according to the 6 analysts tracked by Benzinga. The high target is $250, and the low is $89. Recent ratings by Barclays, Barclays, and Needham suggest a $226.67 target, implying a 4.67% upside.