Investing.com – Belgium equities were higher at the close on Friday, as gains in the Financials, Basic Materials and Utilities sectors propelled shares higher.
At the close in Brussels, the BEL 20 rose 0.12%.
The biggest gainers of the session on the BEL 20 were Galapagos NV (AS:GLPG), which rose 4.04% or 3.220 points to trade at 83.000 at the close. Sofina (BR:SOF) added 2.29% or 3.20 points to end at 143.20 and Solvay SA (BR:SOLB) was up 1.06% or 1.20 points to 114.75 in late trade.
Biggest losers included UCB (BR:UCB), which lost 2.18% or 1.46 points to trade at 65.40 in late trade. Ontex Group (BR:ONTEX) declined 1.22% or 0.26 points to end at 20.98 and Telenet Group (BR:TNET) shed 1.03% or 0.55 points to 53.05.
Advancing stocks outnumbered falling ones by 57 to 47 and 16 ended unchanged on the Brussels Stock Exchange.
In commodities trading, Gold Futures for June delivery was up 0.49% or 6.60 to $1348.50 a troy ounce. Meanwhile, Crude oil for delivery in May rose 0.61% or 0.41 to hit $67.48 a barrel, while the June Brent oil contract rose 0.93% or 0.67 to trade at $72.69 a barrel.
EUR/USD was down 0.01% to 1.2326, while EUR/GBP fell 0.21% to 0.8645.
The US Dollar Index Futures was up 0.02% at 89.51.