Investing.com – U.K. equities were lower at the close on Thursday, as losses in the FTSE 350 - Oil Equipment Services & Distribution, FTSE 350 - Oil & Gas Producers and FTSE 350 - Industrial Metals & Mining sectors propelled shares lower.
At the close in London, the FTSE 100 fell 0.22%.
The biggest gainers of the session on the FTSE 100 were easyJet Plc (LONDON:EZJ), which rose 6.17% or 109.00 points to trade at 1876.00 at the close. Hargreaves Lansdown Plc (LONDON:HRGV) added 3.82% or 38.00 points to end at 1033.00 and Diageo (LONDON:DGE) was up 3.08% or 60.50 points to 2022.50 in late trade.
Biggest losers included Fresnillo Plc (LONDON:FRES), which lost 5.22% or 47.50 points to trade at 862.50 in late trade. Royal Dutch Shell B (LONDON:RDSb) declined 4.89% or 110.00 points to end at 2138.00 and Royal Dutch Shell A (LONDON:RDSa) shed 4.34% or 93.50 points to 2060.00.
Declining stocks outnumbered rising ones by 1203 to 826 and 405 ended unchanged on the London Stock Exchange.
In commodities trading, Gold for April delivery was down 2.43% or 31.30 to $1255.90 a troy ounce. Meanwhile, Crude Oil for delivery in March fell 1.28% or 0.57 to hit $43.88 a barrel, while the March Brent Oil contract rose 0.15% or 0.07 to trade at $48.55 a barrel.
GBP/USD was down 0.63% to 1.5043, while EUR/GBP rose 0.63% to 0.7503.
The US Dollar Index was up 0.33% at 95.20.