Investing.com – U.K. equities were lower at the close on Wednesday, as losses in the Oil Equipment Services & Distribution, Industrial Metals & Mining and Forestry & Paper sectors propelled shares lower.
At the close in London, the Investing.com United Kingdom 100 fell 1.43%.
The biggest gainers of the session on the Investing.com United Kingdom 100 were Admiral Group PLC (LON:ADML), which rose 4.08% or 83.00 points to trade at 2115.00 at the close. Direct Line Insurance Group PLC (LON:DLGD) added 1.23% or 3.60 points to end at 296.20 and Unilever PLC (LON:ULVR) was up 1.22% or 60.00 points to 4967.00 in late trade.
Biggest losers included NMC Health PLC (LON:NMC), which lost 4.88% or 92.50 points to trade at 1801.50 in late trade. Ashtead Group PLC (LON:AHT) declined 4.56% or 99.00 points to end at 2071.00 and Tui AG (LON:TUIT) shed 4.34% or 35.20 points to 775.00.
Declining stocks outnumbered rising ones by 1621 to 547 and 185 ended unchanged on the London Stock Exchange.
In commodities trading, Gold Futures for December delivery was up 1.18% or 17.90 to $1532.00 a troy ounce. Meanwhile, Crude oil for delivery in September fell 5.29% or 3.02 to hit $54.08 a barrel, while the October Brent oil contract fell 4.85% or 2.97 to trade at $58.33 a barrel.
GBP/USD was up 0.01% to 1.2059, while EUR/GBP fell 0.19% to 0.9242.
The US Dollar Index Futures was up 0.16% at 97.787.