Investing.com – U.K. equities were higher at the close on Wednesday, as gains in the Construction & Materials, Oil Equipment Services & Distribution and Industrial Transportation sectors propelled shares higher.
At the close in London, the FTSE 100 rose 1.57%.
The biggest gainers of the session on the FTSE 100 were Standard Chartered (LONDON:STAN), which rose 8.08% or 78.00 points to trade at 1043.00 at the close. St James'S Place (LONDON:SJP) added 5.16% or 48.00 points to end at 978.00 and CRH (LONDON:CRH) was up 4.98% or 84.00 points to 1771.00 in late trade.
Biggest losers included Fresnillo Plc (LONDON:FRES), which lost 2.28% or 15.00 points to trade at 644.00 in late trade. Rio Tinto (LONDON:RIO) declined 1.50% or 43.00 points to end at 2830.50 and Weir Group (LONDON:WEIR) shed 0.95% or 17.00 points to 1763.00.
Advancing stocks outnumbered falling ones by 1374 to 718 and 340 ended unchanged on the London Stock Exchange.
In commodities trading, Gold for April delivery was up 0.34% or 3.90 to $1152.10 a troy ounce. Meanwhile, Crude Oil for delivery in May fell 1.22% or 0.55 to hit $44.64 a barrel, while the May Brent Oil contract rose 1.39% or 0.74 to trade at $54.26 a barrel.
GBP/USD was down 0.20% to 1.4718, while EUR/GBP rose 0.84% to 0.7246.
The US Dollar Index was down 0.53% at 99.51.