Investing.com – U.K. equities were higher at the close on Thursday, as gains in the Industrial Engineering, Oil Equipment Services & Distribution and Food Producers sectors propelled shares higher.
At the close in London, the FTSE 100 gained 0.63%.
The biggest gainers of the session on the FTSE 100 were Weir Group PLC (LONDON:WEIR), which rose 4.20% or 67.00 points to trade at 1661.00 at the close. Pearson PLC (LONDON:PSON) added 2.85% or 35.00 points to end at 1263.00 and Smiths Group PLC (LONDON:SMIN) was up 2.19% or 25.00 points to 1164.00 in late trade.
Biggest losers included BP PLC (LONDON:BP), which lost 1.19% or 5.10 points to trade at 422.00 in late trade. Fresnillo PLC (LONDON:FRES) declined 1.18% or 8.00 points to end at 668.50 and Randgold Resources Ltd (LONDON:RRS) shed 0.39% or 16.00 points to 4086.00.
Advancing stocks outnumbered falling ones by 1855 to 670 and 522 ended unchanged on the London Stock Exchange.
In commodities trading, Gold for August delivery was down 0.33% or 3.80 to $1143.60 a troy ounce. Meanwhile, Crude oil for delivery in August fell 0.37% or 0.19 to hit $51.22 a barrel, while the September Brent oil contract rose 0.25% or 0.14 to trade at $57.27 a barrel.
GBP/USD was down 0.22% to 1.5604, while EUR/GBP fell 0.34% to 0.6978.
The US Dollar Index was up 0.43% at 97.70.