Investing.com – U.K. equities were higher at the close on Thursday, as gains in the Industrial Metals & Mining, Household Goods & Home Construction and Food & Drug Retailers sectors propelled shares higher.
At the close in London, the FTSE 100 rose 0.21% to hit a new all time high.
The biggest gainers of the session on the FTSE 100 were Standard Chartered (LONDON:STAN), which rose 5.37% or 49.70 points to trade at 976.00 at the close. Persimmon (LONDON:PSN) added 4.39% or 74.00 points to end at 1758.00 and Kingfisher (LONDON:KGF) was up 3.21% or 11.20 points to 360.30 in late trade.
Biggest losers included Reed Elsevier (LONDON:REL), which lost 4.80% or 57.00 points to trade at 1130.00 in late trade. RSA Insurance Group Plc (LONDON:RSA) declined 4.71% or 21.200 points to end at 429.100 and easyJet Plc (LONDON:EZJ) shed 4.47% or 81.00 points to 1732.00.
Advancing stocks outnumbered falling ones by 1102 to 958 and 391 ended unchanged on the London Stock Exchange.
In commodities trading, Gold for April delivery was up 0.61% or 7.30 to $1208.80 a troy ounce. Meanwhile, Crude Oil for delivery in April fell 3.08% or 1.57 to hit $49.42 a barrel, while the April Brent Oil contract fell 0.84% or 0.52 to trade at $61.12 a barrel.
GBP/USD was down 0.68% to 1.5424, while EUR/GBP fell 0.66% to 0.7268.
The US Dollar Index was up 1.05% at 95.23.