Four Dividend-paying Foreign Tech Stocks to Buy

04/25/2025

President Trump has said that the tariffs may cause “short-term” pain for Americans, but added that they are necessary to ensure fair trade, protect American workers and reduce the trade deficit. On April 3, President Trump declared a “national emergency” due to foreign trade and economic practices, causing him to impose tariffs to strengthen the international economic position of the United States and protect American jobs.

However, the tariffs have contributed heavily to a market pullback so far in 2025, after two years of strong gains. The White House announced on April 3 that “large and persistent” annual trade deficits for U.S. goods have led to the “hollowing out” of America’s manufacturing base and created disincentives to increase domestic production.

The result is undermining “critical supply chains” and creating dependence on foreign adversaries, rendering the U.S. defense-industrial base vulnerable to disruption, the White House announced.

Four Dividend-paying Foreign Tech Stocks to Buy: Raydium Semiconductor

Taiwan-based Raydium Semiconductor  (TW 3592) produces integrated circuit “drivers” for display panels, both traditional LCDs (liquid crystal display) and the OLED (organic light emitting diode) devices that offer advantages such as higher contrast ratios and better viewing angles. OLEDs are suitable for almost all applications, ranging from portable devices such as watches, phones and laptops to big ones like televisions, computer monitors and digital billboards. However, OLED also has disadvantages, such as a limited lifetime and vulnerability to humidity. The pluses are why an OLED television can cost three times as much as an LCD.

The display drivers power and controls a device by helping an operating system communicate information use as screen resolution, safe and available power and more. Displays are a big part of Raydium’s market and account for much of its revenue volatility during the past decade. However, the company adds a strong cyclical element to its share price. That’s partly why Raydium’s revenue has been on the rise.

Founded in 2003 on core semiconductor technology, Raydium indicated plans to provide innovation, transformation and research and development (R&D) advances. The company also seeks to pioneer its industry in undertaking strategic planning for emerging trends, technologies and products.

Investors who are wary about owning shares in a foreign company do not need to personally become experts, as long as they access guidance from those who follow it closely. One source is Gilder’s Technology Report, led by technology futurist George Gilder. He and his team of analysts track Raydium Semiconductor and other foreign technology companies in addition to those in the United States.

Chart courtesy of yahoofinance.com.

Even though technology stocks generally were hit hard as tariffs and economic concerns among consumers and business leaders arose, the top companies may offer investors a chance to ride a rebound. Seek companies well ahead of the pack and built to widen the lead with each lap of innovation, said George Gilder, who heads the Gilder’s Technology Report investment newsletter and the Gilder’s Moonshots advisory service.

“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.

Samsung Electronics (005930.KQ) is a Korean-based company that is “showing momentum across its dynamic random-access memory (DRAM) business, smartphone division and strategic node development, while balancing geopolitical volatility,” said Robert Castellano, PhD, a senior analyst with Gilder’s Technology Report who also is the president and founder of The Information Networkconsultancy. Early evidence points to a clear uptrend in semiconductor profitability and a broader market recovery, continued Castellano, who received a PhD in solid state chemistry from Oxford University in England under Dr. John Goodenough, inventor of the lithium ion battery and 2019 Nobel Prize winner in Chemistry.

While U.S. trade tensions and high bandwidth memory (HBM) ramp delays present near-term risks, Samsung’s diversified product strategy, disciplined capex and node transitions to 1b and 1c DRAM position it for long-term industry leadership, counseled Castellano, who has experience in the field of wafer fabrication at AT&T Bell Laboratories and Stanford University.

“While some observers argue that the DRAM rebound is temporary — driven by pre-tariff demand rather than underlying strength — evidence suggests otherwise,” Castellano said. “Bit supply growth remains constrained across the industry. Despite positive margins, DRAM makers have exercised unusual supply discipline, with few capacity expansions announced.”

As a result, average selling prices are rising into a tight supply environment, pushing DRAM operating margins toward the high 30% range, Castellano said.

Chart courtesy of yahoofinance.com.

Four Dividend-paying Foreign Tech Stocks to Buy: Tariff Overhang

U.S. semiconductor tariffs remain a key overhang, Castellano cautioned. Samsung estimates exposure to the financial drag if it cannot pass higher costs onto consumers. However, demand ahead of tariff deadlines gave a temporary boost to DRAM and handset volumes, he added.

“While risks remain, the potential for negotiated tariff relief could trigger a re-rating in the stock once visibility improves,” Castellano opined. “Importantly, Samsung’s diversified production base and the ability to shift sourcing, pricing and regional allocation offer a partial hedge. Investors are advised to follow policy signals rather than pricing in worst-case outcomes too early.”

Four Dividend-paying Foreign Tech Stocks to Buy: Taiwan Semiconductor

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Ltd. (NYSE: TSM), another one of the foreign tech companies recommended by Gilder’s Technology Report, ranks as the world’s largest dedicated independent semiconductor foundry. TSM is a foreign tech company that has won favor with President Trump for its big investment in manufacturing products in America.

President Trump joined Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (NYSE: TSM) CEO C.C. Wei on March 4 to announce a historic $100 billion investment by the company in its Arizona-based semiconductor chips manufacturing operation. The commitment marked the largest foreign direct investment in U.S. history.

The investment, when combined with the company’s prior announcement of a $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. Those high-wage positions 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.

TSM CEO C.C. Wei said that his company would produce many semiconductor chips in America to support progress in artificial intelligence (AI) and smartphones.

Four Dividend-paying Foreign Tech Stocks to Buy: TSM’s Trump Card?

“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, headquartered in Hsinchu, Taiwan, is also a major contract manufacturer of computer chips for other companies.

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 Castellano of Gilder’s Technology Report. 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 added.

“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.” But tech stocks have shown some resilience in recent days.

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.

Four Dividend-paying Foreign Tech Stocks to Buy: 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 versus 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 use EPS estimates amid the market downturn, JP Morgan concluded.

Chart courtesy of stockcharts.com.

SK Hynix (000660.KS), of South Korea, supplies 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. Senior analysts with the publication have grown even more enthusiastic about the stock 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 Gilder, who leads the analysts at both 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.

Four Dividend-paying Foreign Tech Stocks to Buy: Geopolitical Risk

Tech stocks are not immune to the fallout from geopolitical risk. Efforts to arrange a ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine have proven elusive, despite President Trump saying recently that a potential agreement is close. However, Trump said this week that he would support the United States recognizing Crimea, a sovereign region of Ukraine, as Russian. Calls for Ukraine to acknowledge it, too, would violate that country’s constitution, its leaders said.

Amid the discord, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and special envoy Steve Witkoff pulled out of traveling to London for peace talks on Wednesday, April 23. Prior to his reelection in November 2024, President Trump boldly predicted he could arrange an end within 24 hours of taking office to Europe’s largest land conflict since World War II.

President Trump’s special envoy to Ukraine, Keith Kellogg, still met with Ukrainian presidential chief of staff Andriy Yermak last Wednesday in London. Both sides agreed to continue a “dialogue,” Yermak said on Telegram after the meeting.

“We conveyed our position and emphasized that an immediate, complete and unconditional ceasefire must be the first step toward launching negotiations aimed at achieving a just and lasting peace,” Yermak said. “We expressed hope that this aligns with the vision of President Donald Trump.”

Russia Keeps Killing and Injuring Civilians in Massive Numbers

So far, negotiations have not yielded much other than Russia backing away from committing to a ceasefire at Easter and intensifying attacks of civilians, as well as 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 people killed that morning by Russia’s ballistic missile attack on Sumy, Ukraine, reached 34, including two children. In total, 117 people were injured, including 15 children. One man was killed going to church on Palm Sunday, April 13, while his wife was seriously injured.

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.

UN Human Rights Officials Document Russia Killing and Injuring Civilians

Human rights monitors of the United Nations have documented a continued high intensity of attacks across Ukraine in April, according to the international organization with 193 member states. In the early hours of April 24, Russia launched a large-scale, coordinated attack on Kyiv, the Capitol of Ukraine, and at least eight other regions of the country using scores of munitions and missiles. At least nine civilians were reportedly killed in Kyiv, and 90 injured, including 12 children, with 44 people requiring hospitalization, the UN reported.

“In one Kyiv location, a powerful missile directly struck a two-story residential building, razing it to the ground,” according to the United Nations. “Emergency workers continue rescue operations to reach people — possibly children — trapped beneath the rubble. Fires broke out across the city due to falling debris from intercepted missiles.

“Similar attacks occurred overnight in several regions, including Kharkiv, Dnipropetrovsk, Zhytomyr, Zaporizhzhia and Kyiv, injuring civilians. The scenes of destruction and suffering in Kyiv… reflect a deeply disturbing trend — civilians bearing the brunt of ever more intense and frequent attacks,” said Danielle Bell, head of the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine (HRMMU).

Between April 1 and 24, Ukraine verified 848 civilian casualties, with 151 killed and 697 injured, a 46% increase compared to the same period last year, according to the UN. The verification process is still ongoing, with casualty numbers expected to rise, it added.

In addition to the military combat there and elsewhere in the world, tariffs add to investment risk. A baseline 10% tariff that went into effect on April 5 still remains in place for all affected imports into the United States. President Trump’s aggressive leadership style has been modified in recent days by him voicing a willingness to negotiate with other heads of state. Market observers are watching whether new trade agreements can be forged.