Investing.com – U.K. equities were lower at the close on Thursday, as losses in the Industrial Metals & Mining, Life Insurance/Assurance and General Industrial sectors propelled shares lower.
At the close in London, the Investing.com United Kingdom 100 fell 0.34%.
The biggest gainers of the session on the Investing.com United Kingdom 100 were National Grid PLC (LON:NG), which rose 2.46% or 20.80 points to trade at 867.10 at the close. Informa PLC (LON:INF) added 2.33% or 16.60 points to end at 728.20 and Unilever PLC (LON:ULVR) was up 1.85% or 75.00 points to 4121.00 in late trade.
Biggest losers included Persimmon PLC (LON:PSN), which lost 7.52% or 183.00 points to trade at 2250.00 in late trade. Paddy Power Betfair PLC (LON:PPB) declined 7.01% or 425.00 points to end at 5640.00 and Schroders PLC (LON:SDR) shed 5.91% or 163.00 points to 2595.00.
Declining stocks outnumbered rising ones by 1460 to 619 and 339 ended unchanged on the London Stock Exchange.
In commodities trading, Gold Futures for April delivery was down 0.07% or 0.85 to $1286.75 a troy ounce. Meanwhile, Crude oil for delivery in April rose 0.68% or 0.38 to hit $56.60 a barrel, while the May Brent oil contract rose 0.48% or 0.32 to trade at $66.31 a barrel.
GBP/USD was down 0.61% to 1.3089, while EUR/GBP fell 0.18% to 0.8568.
The US Dollar Index Futures was up 0.66% at 97.440.