Investing.com – France equities were lower at the close on Wednesday, as losses in the Beverage, Aerospace & Defense and Technology Hardware & Equipment sectors propelled shares lower.
At the close in Paris, the CAC 40 declined 2.59%, while the SBF 120 index fell 2.46%.
The biggest gainers of the session on the CAC 40 were Kering (PARIS:PRTP), which fell 0.21% or 0.35 points to trade at 169.50 at the close. Bouygues (PARIS:BOUY) fell 0.54% or 0.20 points to end at 37.07 and AXA SA (PARIS:AXAF) was down 1.13% or 0.26 points to 22.25 in late trade.
Biggest losers included Arcelormittal (AMS:ISPA), which lost 4.31% or 0.43 points to trade at 9.57 in late trade. Alcatel-Lucent (PARIS:ALUA) declined 4.28% or 0.156 points to end at 3.488 and Peugeot SA (PARIS:PEUP) shed 4.13% or 0.70 points to 16.37.
The top performers on the SBF 120 were Ipsen (PARIS:IPN) which rose 4.97% to 50.30, Sopra Steria Group SA (PARIS:SOPR) which was up 3.27% to settle at 78.69 and Nexity (PARIS:NEXI) which gained 2.44% to close at 38.60.
The worst performers were Aperam (AMS:APAM) which was down 6.51% to 34.09 in late trade, Saft (PARIS:S1A) which lost 5.65% to settle at 35.38 and Natixis (PARIS:CNAT) which was down 5.01% to 7.278 at the close.
Declining stocks outnumbered rising ones by 654 to 255 and 59 ended unchanged on the Paris Stock Exchange.
The CAC 40 VIX, which measures the implied volatility of CAC 40 options, was up 8.87% to 23.03 a new 1-month high.
In commodities trading, Gold for June delivery was down 0.35% or 4.20 to $1209.70 a troy ounce. Meanwhile, Crude oil for delivery in June rose 3.10% or 1.77 to hit $58.83 a barrel, while the June Brent oil contract rose 2.27% or 1.47 to trade at $66.11 a barrel.
EUR/USD was up 1.69% to 1.1166, while EUR/GBP rose 0.80% to 0.7215.
The US Dollar Index was down 1.34% at 94.90.