Investing.com – France equities were higher at the close on Friday, as gains in the Healthcare, Utilities and Consumer Services sectors propelled shares higher.
At the close in Paris, the CAC 40 gained 0.33%, while the SBF 120 index climbed 0.36%.
The biggest gainers of the session on the CAC 40 were Compagnie de Saint Gobain SA (PA:SGOB), which rose 5.62% or 2.17 points to trade at 40.81 at the close. Sanofi SA (PA:SASY) added 3.73% or 2.57 points to end at 71.43 and Schneider Electric SE (PA:SCHN) was up 1.56% or 0.94 points to 61.15 in late trade.
Biggest losers included Nokia Oyj (PA:NOKIA), which lost 4.18% or 0.181 points to trade at 4.149 in late trade. Lafargeholcim Ltd (PA:LHN) declined 1.43% or 0.70 points to end at 48.73 and Societe Generale (PA:SOGN) shed 0.99% or 0.36 points to 36.10.
The top performers on the SBF 120 were Alten (PA:LTEN) which rose 9.18% to 64.00, Eutelsat Communications (PA:ETL) which was up 7.25% to settle at 18.95 and SES (PA:SESFd) which gained 6.51% to close at 20.61.
The worst performers were Gemalto (AS:GTO) which was down 7.08% to 52.35 in late trade, Imerys (PA:IMTP) which lost 6.57% to settle at 63.00 and DBV Technologies (PA:DBV) which was down 5.19% to 63.940 at the close.
Advancing stocks outnumbered falling ones by 343 to 312 and 116 ended unchanged on the Paris Stock Exchange.
The CAC 40 VIX, which measures the implied volatility of CAC 40 options, was up 2.54% to 18.40.
In commodities trading, Gold for December delivery was up 0.13% or 1.70 to $1271.20 a troy ounce. Meanwhile, Crude oil for delivery in December fell 1.17% or 0.58 to hit $49.14 a barrel, while the December Brent oil contract fell 1.11% or 0.56 to trade at $49.91 a barrel.
EUR/USD was up 0.44% to 1.0945, while EUR/GBP rose 0.50% to 0.9004.
The US Dollar Index was down 0.28% at 98.64.