Investing.com – France equities were lower at the close on Thursday, as losses in the Automobiles & Parts, Pharmaceuticals & Biotech and Banking sectors propelled shares lower.
At the close in Paris, the CAC 40 lost 0.86%, while the SBF 120 index fell 0.74%.
The biggest gainers of the session on the CAC 40 were Lafarge (PARIS:LAFP), which rose 0.85% or 0.56 points to trade at 66.41 at the close. Pernod Ricard (PARIS:PERP) added 0.62% or 0.70 points to end at 113.25 and Alcatel-Lucent (PARIS:ALUA) was up 0.58% or 0.021 points to 3.659 in late trade.
Biggest losers included Valeo (PARIS:VLOF), which lost 2.57% or 3.95 points to trade at 149.90 in late trade. Michelin (PARIS:MICP) declined 2.45% or 2.51 points to end at 99.89 and Arcelormittal (AMS:ISPA) shed 2.10% or 0.21 points to 10.01.
The top performers on the SBF 120 were Innate Pharma (PARIS:IPH) which rose 4.01% to 15.310, STMicroelectronics (PARIS:STM) which was up 3.59% to settle at 7.851 and JC Decaux SA (PARIS:JCDX) which gained 2.26% to close at 37.53.
The worst performers were Soitec (PARIS:SOIT) which was down 3.49% to 0.830 in late trade, Virbac (PARIS:VIRB) which lost 2.98% to settle at 218.00 and Valeo (PARIS:VLOF) which was down 2.57% to 149.90 at the close.
Declining stocks outnumbered rising ones by 573 to 325 and 53 ended unchanged on the Paris Stock Exchange.
The CAC 40 VIX, which measures the implied volatility of CAC 40 options, was up 6.00% to 20.83.
In commodities trading, Gold for August delivery was up 0.11% or 1.30 to $1187.80 a troy ounce. Meanwhile, Crude oil for delivery in July fell 0.99% or 0.57 to hit $56.94 a barrel, while the July Brent oil contract rose 0.14% or 0.09 to trade at $62.15 a barrel.
EUR/USD was up 0.11% to 1.0917, while EUR/GBP rose 0.53% to 0.7140.
The US Dollar Index was up 0.04% at 97.38.