The world’s biggest equity rally is creating an unusual bout of FOMO among Taiwan’s professional stock pickers.
Barred by local regulations from owning individual stocks in their personal accounts, fund managers and equity analysts are ditching prestigious finance jobs so they can bet their own money on shares they’ve spent years analyzing. Fewer than half of the 20 largest local equity mutual funds have retained the same portfolio manager for more than three years, according to fund-data website MoneyDJ.
The temptation is clear: Taiwan’s benchmark stock index soared 62% this year to become the world’s best-performing major equity gauge, adding about $1.8 trillion in market capitalization. Some stocks buoyed by the AI trade such as memory and circuit makers Nanya Technology Corp. and Macronix International Co. have more than doubled in 2026.
While personal-trading restrictions are common across global finance, they bite harder for Taiwan’s money managers. Limits on trading on personal accounts are also more onerous in Taiwan, and stringent checks at work for fund managers have overwhelmed the benefits of those jobs for some.
As seasoned professionals leave traditional money managers, they’re often ending up at less-regulated trading firms that allow more freedom for employees to trade their personal accounts. That’s coinciding with the allure of faster career progression where junior staffers spend less time early on doing more mundane work and, crucially, a chance to earn large bonuses in a profit-sharing model.