Investing.com – U.K. equities were lower at the close on Friday, as losses in the Mining, Fixed Line Telecommunications and Industrial Engineering sectors propelled shares lower.
At the close in London, the FTSE 100 fell 0.58%.
The biggest gainers of the session on the FTSE 100 were Carnival (LONDON:CCL), which rose 7.18% or 217.00 points to trade at 3241.00 at the close. Intercontinental Hotels Group (LONDON:IHG) added 2.76% or 71.00 points to end at 2640.00 and Shire Plc (LONDON:SHP) was up 2.17% or 115.00 points to 5425.00 in late trade.
Biggest losers included Tullow Oil Plc (LONDON:TLW), which lost 3.86% or 11.90 points to trade at 296.40 in late trade. Weir Group (LONDON:WEIR) declined 3.54% or 63.00 points to end at 1714.00 and Sports Direct Intl Plc (LONDON:SPD) shed 3.04% or 19.50 points to 621.50.
Declining stocks outnumbered rising ones by 1279 to 784 and 417 ended unchanged on the London Stock Exchange.
In commodities trading, Gold for April delivery was down 0.48% or 5.80 to $1199.00 a troy ounce. Meanwhile, Crude oil for delivery in May fell 3.15% or 1.62 to hit $49.81 a barrel, while the May Brent oil contract fell 2.53% or 1.50 to trade at $57.70 a barrel.
GBP/USD was up 0.33% to 1.4898, while EUR/GBP fell 0.05% to 0.7326.
The US Dollar Index was down 0.10% at 97.44.