Investing.com – U.K. equities were lower at the close on Friday, as losses in the Tobacco, Industrial Metals & Mining and Forestry & Paper sectors propelled shares lower.
At the close in London, the Investing.com United Kingdom 100 declined 0.01%.
The biggest gainers of the session on the Investing.com United Kingdom 100 were Next PLC (LON:NXT), which rose 3.71% or 164.00 points to trade at 4579.00 at the close. Shire PLC (LON:SHP) added 3.10% or 119.70 points to end at 3979.40 and Sage Group PLC (LON:SGE) was up 1.86% or 14.50 points to 795.50 in late trade.
Biggest losers included GlaxoSmithKline PLC (LON:GSK), which lost 1.27% or 16.7 points to trade at 1302.0 in late trade. Mediclinic International PLC (LON:MDCM) declined 1.19% or 7.50 points to end at 622.50 and Anglo American PLC (LON:AAL) shed 1.16% or 17.57 points to 1501.00.
Advancing stocks outnumbered falling ones by 1016 to 886 and 166 ended unchanged on the London Stock Exchange.
In commodities trading, Gold Futures for February delivery was up 0.62% or 7.90 to $1278.50 a troy ounce. Meanwhile, Crude oil for delivery in February fell 0.22% or 0.13 to hit $58.23 a barrel, while the February Brent oil contract rose 0.11% or 0.07 to trade at $64.97 a barrel.
GBP/USD was down 0.04% to 1.3380, while EUR/GBP fell 0.14% to 0.8858.
The US Dollar Index Futures was up 0.11% at 92.94.