Investing.com – U.K. equities were lower at the close on Thursday, as losses in the Oil Equipment Services & Distribution, Industrial Metals & Mining and Software & Computer Services sectors propelled shares lower.
At the close in London, the Investing.com United Kingdom 100 lost 1.45%.
The biggest gainers of the session on the Investing.com United Kingdom 100 were Compass Group PLC (LON:CPG), which rose 5.32% or 76.50 points to trade at 1513.50 at the close. WPP PLC (LON:WPP) added 3.13% or 39.50 points to end at 1301.00 and Babcock International Group PLC (LON:BAB) was up 1.83% or 11.60 points to 644.00 in late trade.
Biggest losers included Provident Financial (LON:PFG), which lost 5.41% or 39.60 points to trade at 692.40 in late trade. Capita PLC (LON:CPI) declined 4.99% or 9.90 points to end at 188.40 and Ashtead Group PLC (LON:AHT) shed 4.91% or 101.00 points to 1955.00.
Declining stocks outnumbered rising ones by 1366 to 628 and 95 ended unchanged on the London Stock Exchange.
In commodities trading, Gold Futures for April delivery was up 0.38% or 5.00 to $1319.60 a troy ounce. Meanwhile, Crude oil for delivery in March fell 1.42% or 0.88 to hit $60.91 a barrel, while the April Brent oil contract fell 1.13% or 0.74 to trade at $64.77 a barrel.
GBP/USD was up 0.24% to 1.3910, while EUR/GBP fell 0.45% to 0.8796.
The US Dollar Index Futures was up 0.12% at 90.27.