Investing.com – U.K. equities were higher at the close on Thursday, as gains in the Industrial Metals & Mining, Pharmaceuticals & Biotechnology and Construction & Materials sectors propelled shares higher.
At the close in London, the FTSE 100 rose 0.59%.
The biggest gainers of the session on the FTSE 100 were Astrazeneca Plc (LONDON:AZN), which rose 4.05% or 174.50 points to trade at 4479.00 at the close. CRH (LONDON:CRH) added 3.73% or 65.00 points to end at 1807.00 and Shire Plc (LONDON:SHP) was up 2.73% or 145.00 points to 5455.00 in late trade.
Biggest losers included Standard Chartered (LONDON:STAN), which lost 4.44% or 45.50 points to trade at 979.00 in late trade. Tullow Oil Plc (LONDON:TLW) declined 3.26% or 10.40 points to end at 308.20 and Royal Mail (LONDON:RMG) shed 2.70% or 11.80 points to 425.80.
Advancing stocks outnumbered falling ones by 1282 to 759 and 380 ended unchanged on the London Stock Exchange.
In commodities trading, Gold for April delivery was up 0.07% or 0.80 to $1151.40 a troy ounce. Meanwhile, Crude Oil for delivery in April fell 1.06% or 0.51 to hit $47.66 a barrel, while the April Brent Oil contract fell 0.65% or 0.38 to trade at $57.16 a barrel.
GBP/USD was down 0.38% to 1.4871, while EUR/GBP rose 0.93% to 0.7132.
The US Dollar Index was down 0.29% at 99.36.