Competitive Comparison

Taiwan Semiconductor vs. Intel Foundry

The dominant contract-chipmaking leader I watch but don't own, against the manufacturing turnaround bet I do — two very different stages of the same foundry business.

Metric	Taiwan Semiconductor (TSM)	Intel (INTC)
P/E ratio (TTM)	27.32 (forward 19.04)	n/m trailing (Q2 2026 turned a real profit; forward 76.86)
EV/EBITDA	18.52x	23.73–43.03x (wide swing, mid-turnaround)
Capex (TTM)	$40.41B	−$13.10B

EV/EBITDA, compared

TSM

18.52x

INTC

~43.03x

Same EV/EBITDA figures as the table above, plotted for a direct read. Bold = held in this book.

Market cap, P/E, PEG, EV/EBITDA, and capex sourced via public filings and financial-data aggregators (GuruFocus, StockAnalysis, company earnings releases), as of August 2026. PEG ratio sourced primarily from GuruFocus where available; different providers use different growth-rate assumptions, so figures elsewhere for the same stock can vary by several multiples. Gold-highlighted column(s) indicate the name(s) actually held in this book.

Why Intel, not TSMC — a deliberate turnaround bet

Taiwan Semiconductor is the dominant leading-edge foundry the entire industry depends on, with a reasonable trailing P/E of 27.32 and consistent profitability — genuinely the safer, more proven way to own the foundry business. I hold Intel instead because it's a specific, higher-risk turnaround bet: whether Intel Foundry can land real external customers and catch up on process-node execution, not a bet that Intel is currently the better business. Intel's Q2 2026 report was the first real proof point — revenue up 25% year-over-year, its fastest growth in over fifteen years, and EPS that doubled estimates — but one strong quarter doesn't resolve the multi-year foundry-execution question, and Intel's own valuation multiples are still swinging wildly quarter to quarter as the market tries to price the turnaround. I'm sized small in Intel on purpose because the thesis is still being proven in real time, while TSMC remains the lower-risk, already-priced-in way to own the same foundry theme.