Investing.com – France equities were lower at the close on Wednesday, as losses in the Industrial Engineering, Foods & Drugs and Oil & Gas sectors propelled shares lower.
At the close in Paris, the CAC 40 fell 0.35%, while the SBF 120 index lost 0.34%.
The biggest gainers of the session on the CAC 40 were Gemalto (AMS:GTO), which rose 2.42% or 1.58 points to trade at 67.05 at the close. Alcatel-Lucent (PARIS:ALUA) added 1.39% or 0.046 points to end at 3.346 and Bouygues (PARIS:BOUY) was up 0.84% or 0.28 points to 33.02 in late trade.
Biggest losers included Lafarge (PARIS:LAFP), which lost 2.04% or 1.32 points to trade at 63.47 in late trade. Technip (PARIS:TECF) declined 1.86% or 1.04 points to end at 54.86 and Alstom (PARIS:ALSO) shed 1.58% or 0.45 points to 28.07.
The top performers on the SBF 120 were Genfit (PARIS:GNFT) which rose 6.85% to 63.200, BIC (PARIS:BICP) which was up 2.63% to settle at 129.00 and Gemalto (AMS:GTO) which gained 2.42% to close at 67.05.
The worst performers were CGG (PARIS:GEPH) which was down 5.60% to 5.64 in late trade, Solocal Group (PARIS:LOCAL) which lost 3.78% to settle at 0.636 and Areva (PARIS:AREVA) which was down 3.74% to 9.14 at the close.
Declining stocks outnumbered rising ones by 532 to 362 and 58 ended unchanged on the Paris Stock Exchange.
The CAC 40 VIX, which measures the implied volatility of CAC 40 options, was up 4.37% to 23.83.
In commodities trading, Gold for April delivery was down 0.76% or 9.40 to $1222.80 a troy ounce. Meanwhile, Crude Oil for delivery in March fell 0.50% or 0.25 to hit $49.77 a barrel, while the April Brent Oil contract fell 1.49% or 0.85 to trade at $56.63 a barrel.
EUR/USD was down 0.32% to 1.1284, while EUR/GBP fell 0.13% to 0.7412.
The US Dollar Index was up 0.37% at 95.20.