Investing.com – Belgium equities were higher at the close on Friday, as gains in the Consumer Goods, Healthcare and Consumer Services sectors propelled shares higher.
At the close in Brussels, the BEL 20 rose 0.50%.
The biggest gainers of the session on the BEL 20 were Galapagos NV (AS:GLPG), which rose 3.60% or 2.860 points to trade at 82.340 at the close. Etablissementen Fr Colruyt NV (BR:COLR) added 2.59% or 1.29 points to end at 51.10 and Telenet Group (BR:TNET) was up 2.36% or 1.00 points to 43.44 in late trade.
Biggest losers included bpost NV (BR:BPOST), which lost 1.06% or 0.14 points to trade at 13.06 in late trade. Proximus NV (BR:PROX) declined 0.76% or 0.16 points to end at 20.80 and Umicore SA (BR:UMI) shed 0.53% or 0.26 points to 48.74.
Advancing stocks outnumbered falling ones by 58 to 51 and 14 ended unchanged on the Brussels Stock Exchange.
In commodities trading, Gold Futures for August delivery was down 0.28% or 3.50 to $1255.30 a troy ounce. Meanwhile, Crude oil for delivery in August rose 1.22% or 0.89 to hit $73.83 a barrel, while the September Brent oil contract fell 0.26% or 0.20 to trade at $77.19 a barrel.
EUR/USD was up 0.43% to 1.1740, while EUR/GBP rose 0.09% to 0.8852.
The US Dollar Index Futures was down 0.37% at 93.78.