Investing.com – France equities were higher at the close on Wednesday, as gains in the Automobiles & Parts, Household Goods and Travel & Leisure sectors propelled shares higher.
At the close in Paris, the CAC 40 rose 1.44%, while the SBF 120 index gained 1.38%.
The biggest gainers of the session on the CAC 40 were Valeo SA (PARIS:VLOF), which rose 3.38% or 3.90 points to trade at 119.40 at the close. Alcatel Lucent SA (PARIS:ALUA) added 3.21% or 0.098 points to end at 3.147 and Lafargeholcim Ltd (PARIS:LHN) was up 3.15% or 1.64 points to 53.65 in late trade.
Biggest losers included Solvay SA (BRU:SOLB), which lost 0.29% or 0.30 points to trade at 104.40 in late trade. Alstom SA (PARIS:ALSO) declined 0.26% or 0.07 points to end at 28.94 and Bouygues SA (PARIS:BOUY) shed 0.14% or 0.05 points to 34.65.
The top performers on the SBF 120 were Elis Services SA (PARIS:ELIS) which rose 6.91% to 15.00, Sopra Steria Group SA (PARIS:SOPR) which was up 6.41% to settle at 97.25 and Montupet SA (PARIS:MNTP) which gained 5.87% to close at 68.500.
The worst performers were STMicroelectronics (PARIS:STM) which was down 3.83% to 6.427 in late trade, Ingenico Group (PARIS:INGC) which lost 2.38% to settle at 102.75 and Neopost (PARIS:NPOS) which was down 0.82% to 32.02 at the close.
Advancing stocks outnumbered falling ones by 511 to 215 and 51 ended unchanged on the Paris Stock Exchange.
The CAC 40 VIX, which measures the implied volatility of CAC 40 options, was down 6.66% to 28.50.
In commodities trading, Gold for December delivery was down 1.53% or 17.10 to $1103.90 a troy ounce. Meanwhile, Crude oil for delivery in October fell 1.50% or 0.69 to hit $45.25 a barrel, while the October Brent oil contract fell 1.77% or 0.88 to trade at $48.65 a barrel.
EUR/USD was down 0.47% to 1.1150, while EUR/GBP fell 0.28% to 0.7258.
The US Dollar Index was up 0.49% at 96.31.