Investing.com – Belgium equities were lower at the close on Friday, as losses in the Telecoms, Industrials and Basic Materials sectors propelled shares lower.
At the close in Brussels, the BEL 20 declined 0.34%.
The biggest gainers of the session on the BEL 20 were NV Bekaert SA (BR:BEKB), which rose 1.46% or 0.53 points to trade at 36.45 at the close. Ontex Group (BR:ONTEX) added 0.27% or 0.07 points to end at 27.58 and Telenet Group (BR:TNET) was up 0.24% or 0.14 points to 58.09 in late trade.
Biggest losers included bpost NV (BR:BPOST), which lost 1.84% or 0.47 points to trade at 25.39 in late trade. Proximus NV (BR:PROX) declined 0.87% or 0.24 points to end at 27.35 and Umicore SA (BR:UMI) shed 0.80% or 0.32 points to 39.46.
Declining stocks outnumbered rising ones by 55 to 55 and 15 ended unchanged on the Brussels Stock Exchange.
In commodities trading, Gold Futures for February delivery was up 0.77% or 10.00 to $1307.20 a troy ounce. Meanwhile, Crude oil for delivery in February rose 0.92% or 0.55 to hit $60.39 a barrel, while the March Brent oil contract rose 1.09% or 0.72 to trade at $66.88 a barrel.
EUR/USD was up 0.67% to 1.2022, while EUR/GBP fell 0.06% to 0.8884.
The US Dollar Index Futures was down 0.56% at 91.82.