Taiwan's stock market — the Taiex, the main index tracking the biggest companies listed here — closed up 7.98%. That's 3,186 points, the largest single-day point gain this market has ever posted. TSMC rose 10%, which is the daily ceiling. The stock was not allowed to go any higher. That's how this market works — a stock can't move more than 10% from where it closed the day before, in either direction. Trading doesn't stop. The price just isn't allowed to go any further, and the buy orders pile up behind it.

Now, for some people watching that number, it was a rescue. For others, it was a party they'd already been thrown out of. Because two days earlier, some of them had been sold out of their positions — not because they decided to sell, but because they'd borrowed money to buy those shares, and the lender wanted it back.