Investing.com – Belgium equities were lower at the close on Wednesday, as losses in the Telecoms, Healthcare and Utilities sectors propelled shares lower.
At the close in Brussels, the BEL 20 declined 1.37%.
The biggest gainers of the session on the BEL 20 were Ontex Group (BR:ONTEX), which rose 3.70% or 1.00 points to trade at 28.00 at the close. Umicore NV (BR:UMI) added 0.75% or 0.33 points to end at 43.55 and NV Bekaert SA (BR:BEKB) was up 0.36% or 0.14 points to 38.09 in late trade.
Biggest losers included Proximus NV (BR:PROX), which lost 5.00% or 1.47 points to trade at 27.85 in late trade. Galapagos NV (AS:GLPG) declined 3.28% or 1.400 points to end at 41.315 and UCB (BR:UCB) shed 2.21% or 1.46 points to 64.48.
Declining stocks outnumbered rising ones by 87 to 51 and 10 ended unchanged on the Brussels Stock Exchange.
In commodities trading, Gold for June delivery was down 0.77% or 9.90 to $1281.90 a troy ounce. Meanwhile, Crude oil for delivery in June rose 0.53% or 0.23 to hit $43.88 a barrel, while the July Brent oil contract fell 0.20% or 0.09 to trade at $44.88 a barrel.
EUR/USD was down 0.02% to 1.1496, while EUR/GBP rose 0.29% to 0.7933.
The US Dollar Index was up 0.24% at 93.24.