Investing.com – U.K. equities were lower at the close on Wednesday, as losses in the Mobile Telecommunications, Banking and Aerospace & Defense sectors propelled shares lower.
At the close in London, the Investing.com United Kingdom 100 fell 1.53%.
The biggest gainers of the session on the Investing.com United Kingdom 100 were Anglo American PLC (L:AAL), which rose 8.55% or 21.55 points to trade at 273.70 at the close. Rio Tinto PLC (L:RIO) added 4.17% or 67.500 points to end at 1685.000 and Glencore PLC (L:GLEN) was up 3.37% or 2.8000 points to 85.9500 in late trade.
Biggest losers included Barclays PLC (L:BARC), which lost 4.69% or 8.1500 points to trade at 165.6000 in late trade. Aberdeen Asset Management PLC (L:ADN) declined 4.55% or 10.70 points to end at 224.30 and Shire PLC (L:SHP) shed 4.32% or 168.00 points to 3717.00.
Declining stocks outnumbered rising ones by 1602 to 523 and 384 ended unchanged on the London Stock Exchange.
In commodities trading, Gold for April delivery was up 1.05% or 11.80 to $1139.00 a troy ounce. Meanwhile, Crude oil for delivery in March rose 5.94% or 1.77 to hit $31.66 a barrel, while the April Brent oil contract rose 5.70% or 1.86 to trade at $34.59 a barrel.
GBP/USD was up 1.06% to 1.4563, while EUR/GBP rose 0.13% to 0.7588.
The US Dollar Index was down 1.28% at 97.60.