Investing.com – U.K. equities were higher at the close on Wednesday, as gains in the Construction & Materials, Gas, Water & Multiutilities and Electrical sectors propelled shares higher.
At the close in London, the FTSE 100 rose 1.21%.
The biggest gainers of the session on the FTSE 100 were CRH (LONDON:CRH), which rose 3.55% or 63.00 points to trade at 1839.00 at the close. Imperial Tobacco Group (LONDON:IMT) added 3.32% or 109.00 points to end at 3393.00 and International Airlines Group (LONDON:ICAG) was up 3.21% or 17.50 points to 562.00 in late trade.
Biggest losers included Glencore Xstrata Plc (LONDON:GLEN), which lost 1.03% or 3.00 points to trade at 286.75 in late trade. Old Mutual Plc (LONDON:OML) declined 0.87% or 2.00 points to end at 229.00 and Weir Group (LONDON:WEIR) shed 0.70% or 14.00 points to 1988.00.
Advancing stocks outnumbered falling ones by 1658 to 914 and 466 ended unchanged on the London Stock Exchange.
In commodities trading, Gold for August delivery was down 0.08% or 1.00 to $1186.80 a troy ounce. Meanwhile, Crude oil for delivery in July fell 0.10% or 0.06 to hit $57.97 a barrel, while the July Brent oil contract fell 1.40% or 0.90 to trade at $62.83 a barrel.
GBP/USD was down 0.35% to 1.5328, while EUR/GBP rose 0.47% to 0.7101.
The US Dollar Index was up 0.12% at 97.50.