KUALA LUMPUR: Blue chips wavered in early Thursday trade in the absence of strong leads from institutional players as the first half of 2019 draws to an end due to mixed signals from the proposed US-China meeting over the weekend.

At 9.24am, the FBM KLCI was up 0.48 of a point or 0.03% higher at 1,674.97. Turnover was 157.51 million shares valued at RM77.50mil. There were 152 gainers, 122 losers and 215 counters unchanged.

Asian markets were busy going nowhere as confusion shrouded the chances of any progress in the US-China trade standoff, while bulls scaled back wagers for a drastic cut in US interest rates, Reuters reported.

President Donald Trump said on Wednesday that a trade deal with Chinese President Xi Jinping was possible this weekend but warned he was prepared to impose US tariffs on virtually all remaining Chinese imports if talks fail.

Trump also raised the possibility that he may impose a lower, 10% duty on a US$300bil list of Chinese imports, instead of the proposed 25% rate.

At Bursa, Tenaga rose 14 sen to RM13.92 and Telekom 10 sen to RM4.12.

Nestle gained 50 sen to RM149.50 with just 100 shares done, Subur Tiasa 5.5 sen to 54 sen, SWS Cap 5.5 sen to 70 sen and Uchitec five sen higher at RM2.87.

Ekovest rose one sen 85.5 sen with 4.1 million shares done and IWCity two sen higher at RM1.08.

BAT fell 16 sen to RM29.34 and Carlsberg 10 sen to RM25.30 while Hai-O was down five sen to RM2.19.

Yinson lost eight sen to RM6.11. CIMB Equities Research downgraded Yinson from Add to Hold as the share price has reacted strongly to news that the oil and gas services company was likely to bag Petrobras’ Marlim-1 contract.

It said its sum-of-parts based target price was raised to RM6.14 from RM5.90 mainly as it increased the discounted cashflow value of potential contract wins by 23 sen a share.