Investing.com – U.K. equities were higher at the close on Wednesday, as gains in the Food & Drug Retailers, Food Producers and Construction & Materials sectors propelled shares higher.
At the close in London, the FTSE 100 gained 1.13%.
The biggest gainers of the session on the FTSE 100 were Standard Chartered (LONDON:STAN), which rose 5.80% or 60.00 points to trade at 1094.00 at the close. Associated British Foods (LONDON:ABF) added 5.35% or 156.00 points to end at 3070.00 and WM Morrison Supermarkets PLC (LONDON:MRW) was up 4.96% or 8.50 points to 179.90 in late trade.
Biggest losers included Weir Group (LONDON:WEIR), which lost 0.42% or 8.00 points to trade at 1914.00 in late trade. Marks & Spencer Group (LONDON:MKS) declined 0.27% or 1.50 points to end at 553.50 and Pearson (LONDON:PSON) shed 0.08% or 1.00 points to 1272.00.
Advancing stocks outnumbered falling ones by 1890 to 715 and 408 ended unchanged on the London Stock Exchange.
In commodities trading, Gold for August delivery was up 0.76% or 9.00 to $1186.60 a troy ounce. Meanwhile, Crude oil for delivery in July rose 1.01% or 0.61 to hit $60.75 a barrel, while the July Brent oil contract rose 0.62% or 0.41 to trade at $65.28 a barrel.
GBP/USD was up 0.74% to 1.5499, while EUR/GBP fell 0.63% to 0.7288.
The US Dollar Index was down 0.39% at 94.79.