Investing.com – Belgium equities were lower at the close on Thursday, as losses in the Technology, Healthcare and Utilities sectors propelled shares lower.
At the close in Brussels, the BEL 20 fell 1.78%.
The biggest gainers of the session on the BEL 20 were Galapagos NV (AS:GLPG), which rose 1.41% or 1.240 points to trade at 88.960 at the close. Cofinimmo SA (BR:COFB) added 0.52% or 0.60 points to end at 116.00 and Ontex Group (BR:ONTEX) was down 0.26% or 0.05 points to 19.00 in late trade.
Biggest losers included Solvay SA (BR:SOLB), which lost 4.44% or 4.36 points to trade at 93.74 in late trade. Aperam SA (AS:APAM) declined 4.32% or 1.23 points to end at 27.27 and Umicore SA (BR:UMI) shed 3.46% or 1.32 points to 36.78.
Declining stocks outnumbered rising ones by 73 to 42 and 15 ended unchanged on the Brussels Stock Exchange.
In commodities trading, Gold Futures for April delivery was up 0.02% or 0.25 to $1314.65 a troy ounce. Meanwhile, Crude oil for delivery in March fell 3.59% or 1.94 to hit $52.07 a barrel, while the April Brent oil contract fell 2.89% or 1.81 to trade at $60.88 a barrel.
EUR/USD was down 0.03% to 1.1357, while EUR/GBP fell 0.32% to 0.8754.
The US Dollar Index Futures was up 0.08% at 96.227.