Investing.com – U.K. equities were higher at the close on Thursday, as gains in the Pharmaceuticals & Biotech, Automobiles & Parts and Software & Computer Services sectors propelled shares higher.
At the close in London, the Investing.com United Kingdom 100 rose 1.05%.
The biggest gainers of the session on the Investing.com United Kingdom 100 were AstraZeneca PLC (LON:AZN), which rose 5.55% or 384.00 points to trade at 7303.00 at the close. Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust PLC (LON:SMT) added 4.87% or 23.00 points to end at 495.00 and Relx PLC (LON:REL) was up 3.98% or 70.50 points to 1840.00 in late trade.
Biggest losers included NMC Health PLC (LON:NMC), which lost 4.81% or 127.00 points to trade at 2513.00 in late trade. Marks and Spencer Group PLC (LON:MKS) declined 3.80% or 7.25 points to end at 183.75 and Royal Bank of Scotland Group PLC (LON:RBS) shed 3.34% or 7.80 points to 225.90.
Advancing stocks outnumbered falling ones by 1150 to 937 and 185 ended unchanged on the London Stock Exchange.
In commodities trading, Gold Futures for December delivery was up 0.57% or 8.55 to $1504.25 a troy ounce. Meanwhile, Crude oil for delivery in December rose 0.89% or 0.50 to hit $56.47 a barrel, while the December Brent oil contract rose 1.14% or 0.70 to trade at $61.87 a barrel.
GBP/USD was down 0.53% to 1.2847, while EUR/GBP rose 0.39% to 0.8648.
The US Dollar Index Futures was up 0.17% at 97.403.