Investing.com – U.K. equities were lower at the close on Thursday, as losses in the Oil Equipment Services & Distribution, Industrial Transportation and Automobiles & Parts sectors propelled shares lower.
At the close in London, the Investing.com United Kingdom 100 declined 1.43%.
The biggest gainers of the session on the Investing.com United Kingdom 100 were Merlin Entertainments PLC (LON:MERL), which rose 7.55% or 25.10 points to trade at 357.60 at the close. International Consolidated Airlines Group S.A. (LON:ICAG) added 1.27% or 6.00 points to end at 478.80 and AstraZeneca PLC (LON:AZN) was up 1.26% or 75.00 points to 6013.00 in late trade.
Biggest losers included Royal Mail PLC (LON:RMG), which lost 10.86% or 24.10 points to trade at 197.90 in late trade. Babcock International Group PLC (LON:BAB) declined 9.41% or 43.30 points to end at 416.70 and Tui AG (LON:TUIT) shed 5.13% or 40.00 points to 740.20.
Declining stocks outnumbered rising ones by 1640 to 558 and 173 ended unchanged on the London Stock Exchange.
In commodities trading, Gold Futures for June delivery was up 0.95% or 12.05 to $1286.25 a troy ounce. Meanwhile, Crude oil for delivery in July fell 6.48% or 3.98 to hit $57.44 a barrel, while the July Brent oil contract fell 5.51% or 3.91 to trade at $67.08 a barrel.
GBP/USD was up 0.13% to 1.2677, while EUR/GBP rose 0.20% to 0.8825.
The US Dollar Index Futures was down 0.21% at 97.672.