Chip stocks gained in premarket trading. SOXL up 5%; TSMC up 4.8%; ARM Holdings, Super Micro up 1.8% each; Marvell, Broadcom up over 1%.

Taiwan's TSMC lifted the semiconductor sector amid U.S. President Donald Trump's fast-evolving trade policies by providing an upbeat forecast, a day after warnings from Nvidia and ASML rocked chip stocks.

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co, whose customers include Apple and Nvidia, reported better-than-expected quarterly profit on Thursday and maintained its full-year outlooks for both revenue and capital spending.

TMSC executives said that although they understood there were risks from U.S. tariffs, the company has not seen any change in customer behaviour and expected its business to be supported by robust artificial intelligence demand.

The company, which is the world's largest contract chipmaker, is the main producer of advanced chips used in artificial intelligence applications and has been boosted by strong demand.

Gary Tan, a portfolio manager at Allspring Global Investments, said TSMC is in the strongest position to pass on price increases.

"That will be a proxy that you can work down the supply chain," said Tan, whose fund owns TSMC stocks but is underweight on Taiwan.

The bullish outlook from the bellwether for the global chip industry could help alleviate some investor concerns about chipmakers but the overall outlook for the sector remains cloudy and will be in focus through earnings season.