Investing.com – U.K. equities were higher at the close on Thursday, as gains in the Healthcare Equipment & Services, Automobiles & Parts and Oil & Gas Producers sectors propelled shares higher.
At the close in London, the Investing.com United Kingdom 100 rose 0.84%.
The biggest gainers of the session on the Investing.com United Kingdom 100 were Smith & Nephew PLC (LON:SN), which rose 6.88% or 67.80 points to trade at 1,054.00 at the close. Bunzl PLC (LON:BNZL) added 2.90% or 88.00 points to end at 3,120.00 and Barclays PLC (LON:BARC) was up 2.84% or 6.20 points to 224.35 in late trade.
Biggest losers included Next PLC (LON:NXT), which lost 1.91% or 174.00 points to trade at 8,938.00 in late trade. Spirax-Sarco Engineering PLC (LON:SPX) declined 1.75% or 150.00 points to end at 8,435.00 and Croda International PLC (LON:CRDA) shed 1.35% or 55.00 points to 4,035.00.
Advancing stocks outnumbered falling ones by 1006 to 633 and 733 ended unchanged on the London Stock Exchange.
In commodities trading, Gold Futures for August delivery was down 0.12% or 2.95 to $2,366.45 a troy ounce. Meanwhile, Crude oil for delivery in August unchanged 0.00% or 0.00 to hit $83.88 a barrel, while the September Brent oil contract rose 0.11% or 0.10 to trade at $87.44 a barrel.
GBP/USD was unchanged 0.16% to 1.28, while EUR/GBP unchanged 0.09% to 0.85.
The US Dollar Index Futures was down 0.26% at 104.81.