Investing.com – U.K. equities were lower at the close on Thursday, as losses in the Life Insurance/Assurance, General Industrial and Financial Services sectors propelled shares lower.
At the close in London, the Investing.com United Kingdom 100 fell 0.25%.
The biggest gainers of the session on the Investing.com United Kingdom 100 were Randgold Resources Ltd (LON:RRS), which rose 3.22% or 205.00 points to trade at 6575.00 at the close. Marks and Spencer Group PLC (LON:MKS) added 3.00% or 12.60 points to end at 433.00 and J Sainsbury PLC (LON:SBRY) was up 2.68% or 7.500 points to 287.200 in late trade.
Biggest losers included Glencore PLC (LON:GLEN), which lost 5.71% or 8.0000 points to trade at 132.1000 in late trade. Pearson PLC (LON:PSON) declined 4.95% or 43.00 points to end at 825.00 and Aviva PLC (LON:AV) shed 4.53% or 20.000 points to 422.000.
Declining stocks outnumbered rising ones by 1304 to 805 and 471 ended unchanged on the London Stock Exchange.
In commodities trading, Gold for June delivery was up 1.29% or 15.80 to $1239.60 a troy ounce. Meanwhile, Crude oil for delivery in May fell 2.20% or 0.83 to hit $36.92 a barrel, while the June Brent oil contract fell 2.16% or 0.86 to trade at $38.98 a barrel.
GBP/USD was down 0.25% to 1.4087, while EUR/GBP rose 0.15% to 0.8084.
The US Dollar Index was down 0.07% at 94.42.