Investing.com – France equities were higher at the close on Wednesday, as gains in the Household Goods, Automobiles & Parts and General Retailers sectors propelled shares higher.
At the close in Paris, the CAC 40 rose 1.94%, while the SBF 120 index gained 1.89%.
The biggest gainers of the session on the CAC 40 were Renault SA (PARIS:RENA), which rose 3.87% or 3.62 points to trade at 97.04 at the close. Airbus Group (PARIS:AIR) added 3.73% or 2.17 points to end at 60.37 and Peugeot SA (PARIS:PEUP) was up 3.44% or 0.64 points to 19.08 in late trade.
Biggest losers included EDF (PARIS:EDF), which lost 0.55% or 0.11 points to trade at 19.89 in late trade. Technip (PARIS:TECF) added 0.16% or 0.09 points to end at 55.61 and L'Oreal (PARIS:OREP) gained 0.53% or 0.85 points to 160.85.
The top performers on the SBF 120 were Alten (PARIS:LTEN) which rose 6.00% to 44.16, SEB SA (PARIS:SEBF) which was up 5.98% to settle at 88.60 and Plastic Omnium (PARIS:PLOF) which gained 5.27% to close at 24.06.
The worst performers were Numericable Pr (PARIS:NUME) which was down 1.15% to 47.000 in late trade, Eramet (PARIS:ERMT) which lost 0.60% to settle at 69.06 and EDF (PARIS:EDF) which was down 0.55% to 19.89 at the close.
Advancing stocks outnumbered falling ones by 643 to 169 and 44 ended unchanged on the Paris Stock Exchange.
The CAC 40 VIX, which measures the implied volatility of CAC 40 options, was down 6.18% to 29.33.
In commodities trading, Gold for August delivery was down 0.19% or 2.20 to $1169.60 a troy ounce. Meanwhile, Crude oil for delivery in August fell 3.13% or 1.86 to hit $57.61 a barrel, while the August Brent oil contract fell 1.63% or 1.03 to trade at $62.55 a barrel.
EUR/USD was down 0.53% to 1.1083, while EUR/GBP fell 0.03% to 0.7098.
The US Dollar Index was up 0.54% at 96.27.