Investing.com – U.K. equities were higher at the close on Friday, as gains in the Pharmaceuticals & Biotech, Tobacco and Aerospace & Defense sectors propelled shares higher.
At the close in London, the Investing.com United Kingdom 100 added 0.13%.
The biggest gainers of the session on the Investing.com United Kingdom 100 were AstraZeneca PLC (LON:AZN), which rose 4.29% or 317.0 points to trade at 7715.0 at the close. Bank VTB PAO DRC (LON:VTBRq) added 3.43% or 0.044 points to end at 1.326 and Hikma Pharmaceuticals PLC (LON:HIK) was up 3.17% or 75.00 points to 2440.00 in late trade.
Biggest losers included Barclays PLC (LON:BARC), which lost 7.00% or 13.22 points to trade at 175.50 in late trade. Ocado Group PLC (LON:OCDO) declined 4.03% or 88.00 points to end at 2097.00 and GMK Norilskiy Nikel PAO DRC (LON:NKELyq) shed 3.88% or 1.37 points to 33.93.
Declining stocks outnumbered rising ones by 1140 to 1016 and 274 ended unchanged on the London Stock Exchange.
In commodities trading, Gold Futures for June delivery was down 0.07% or 1.25 to $1767.05 a troy ounce. Meanwhile, Crude oil for delivery in June fell 2.40% or 1.56 to hit $63.45 a barrel, while the July Brent oil contract fell 2.07% or 1.41 to trade at $66.64 a barrel.
GBP/USD was down 0.74% to 1.3837, while EUR/GBP rose 0.07% to 0.8697.
The US Dollar Index Futures was up 0.65% at 91.185.