What happened

Shares of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSM -0.23%) stumbled in early-afternoon trading Monday, down 2.9%, after the Korean contract semiconductor manufacturer released monthly figures showing a month-over-month decline in revenue.  

So what

TSMC's results showed a 10.9% decline in revenue, contracting 145.41 billion Taiwan dollars. Year over year, the month's revenues declined 15.4%.

On the plus side, for the full first quarter -- January through the end of March -- revenues increased 3.9% year over year to 508.63 billion Taiwan dollars, or about US $16.7 billion. On the minus side, both the March figures, and those for the entire Q1 period, were a bit weaker than consensus estimates.

TSMC's share price decline today roughly matches the size of the "sales miss." Analysts had forecast 525.5 billion Taiwan dollars for the quarter, and the company's actual revenues fell about 3.2% short of that mark. So today's mini-sell-off was probably to be expected. That being said, at least one analyst notes that TSMC's revenues fell within management's own guidance range for the quarter -- just a bit short of the midpoint of that range, and toward the low end.

Now what

The bigger question is what today's sales miss implies for earnings at the semiconductor manufacturing giant. According to Yahoo! Finance figures, analysts were already anticipating a 3.2% decline in sales to cause a 12.2% falloff in profits at the company. With sales down a bit more than anticipated, it stands to reason that profits, too, may come in a bit light when TSMC releases its earnings results -- possibly later this week.    

So how big of a problem is this for TSMC?

Well, analyst forecasts currently have the company earning $5.48 per share this year -- which should be plenty to support a stock that currently costs only $88. For that matter, even if earnings come in a bit lower than expected -- say, $5.30 per share -- this would still imply a P/E ratio of only 16.6 for the stock. With strong predictions for future growth (21% annualized over the next five years), this implies that TSMC is selling for a significant discount to intrinsic value already.

And today's mini-sell-off just might the opportunity you've been waiting for to buy TSMC stock.