Investing.com – France equities were higher at the close on Monday, as gains in the Pharmaceuticals & Biotech, General Retailers and Health Care sectors propelled shares higher.
At the close in Paris, the CAC 40 rose 1.01% to hit a new 5-year high, while the SBF 120 index gained 0.98%.
The biggest gainers of the session on the CAC 40 were Kering (PARIS:PRTP), which rose 2.63% or 5.00 points to trade at 194.85 at the close. Sanofi (PARIS:SASY) added 2.49% or 2.24 points to end at 92.07 and Safran (PARIS:SAF) was up 2.22% or 1.48 points to 68.05 in late trade.
Biggest losers included Lafarge (PARIS:LAFP), which lost 6.25% or 4.06 points to trade at 60.92 in late trade. Alcatel-Lucent (PARIS:ALUA) declined 0.67% or 0.025 points to end at 3.690 and Technip (PARIS:TECF) shed 0.52% or 0.30 points to 57.30.
The top performers on the SBF 120 were Altran Technologies (PARIS:ALTT) which rose 6.36% to 9.449, Hermes International SCA (PARIS:HRMS) which was up 4.39% to settle at 313.75 and STMicroelectronics (PARIS:STM) which gained 4.27% to close at 9.162.
The worst performers were Lafarge (PARIS:LAFP) which was down 6.25% to 60.92 in late trade, Vallourec (PARIS:VLLP) which lost 3.95% to settle at 20.92 and CGG (PARIS:GEPH) which was down 3.64% to 5.46 at the close.
Advancing stocks outnumbered falling ones by 575 to 358 and 40 ended unchanged on the Paris Stock Exchange.
The CAC 40 VIX, which measures the implied volatility of CAC 40 options, was up 3.70% to 18.18.
In commodities trading, Gold for April delivery was up 0.12% or 1.40 to $1153.80 a troy ounce. Meanwhile, Crude Oil for delivery in May fell 3.04% or 1.43 to hit $45.63 a barrel, while the May Brent Oil contract fell 2.97% or 1.64 to trade at $53.38 a barrel.
EUR/USD was up 0.92% to 1.0593, while EUR/GBP rose 0.38% to 0.7143.
The US Dollar Index was down 0.76% at 99.95.