Investing.com – U.K. equities were lower at the close on Wednesday, as losses in the Food & Drug Retailers, Industrial Metals & Mining and Forestry & Paper sectors propelled shares lower.
At the close in London, the FTSE 100 lost 0.49%.
The biggest gainers of the session on the FTSE 100 were Rolls-Royce Holdings Plc (LONDON:RR), which rose 4.07% or 41.00 points to trade at 1048.00 at the close. Travis Perkins (LONDON:TPK) added 2.72% or 55.00 points to end at 2074.00 and Rio Tinto (LONDON:RIO) was up 1.83% or 51.50 points to 2863.50 in late trade.
Biggest losers included Tesco (LONDON:TSCO), which lost 5.15% or 12.10 points to trade at 222.65 in late trade. WM Morrison Supermarkets PLC (LONDON:MRW) declined 4.08% or 8.10 points to end at 190.40 and Sainsbury(J) (LONDON:SBRY) shed 3.73% or 10.20 points to 263.00.
Declining stocks outnumbered rising ones by 1684 to 914 and 454 ended unchanged on the London Stock Exchange.
In commodities trading, Gold for June delivery was down 1.10% or 13.20 to $1189.90 a troy ounce. Meanwhile, Crude oil for delivery in June fell 0.41% or 0.23 to hit $56.38 a barrel, while the June Brent oil contract rose 1.23% or 0.77 to trade at $62.84 a barrel.
GBP/USD was up 0.59% to 1.5019, while EUR/GBP fell 0.73% to 0.7140.
The US Dollar Index was up 0.07% at 98.27.