Investing.com – France equities were lower at the close on Wednesday, as losses in the Utilities, Oil & Gas and Financials sectors propelled shares lower.
At the close in Paris, the CAC 40 lost 0.51%, while the SBF 120 index declined 0.47%.
The biggest gainers of the session on the CAC 40 were Lafargeholcim Ltd (PA:LHN), which rose 1.43% or 0.65 points to trade at 45.69 at the close. STMicroelectronics (PA:STM) added 1.02% or 0.190 points to end at 18.840 and Sodexo (PA:EXHO) was up 0.54% or 0.60 points to 112.35 in late trade.
Biggest losers included TechnipFMC PLC (PA:FTI), which lost 1.75% or 0.43 points to trade at 24.20 in late trade. Schneider Electric SE (PA:SCHN) declined 1.73% or 1.24 points to end at 70.62 and Veolia Environnement VE SA (PA:VIE) shed 1.23% or 0.260 points to 20.925.
The top performers on the SBF 120 were Maisons du Monde SAS (PA:MDM) which rose 3.64% to 36.400, Gemalto (AS:GTO) which was up 3.06% to settle at 47.00 and Europcar Groupe SA (PA:EUCAR) which gained 2.30% to close at 10.21.
The worst performers were SES (PA:SESFd) which was down 4.74% to 14.16 in late trade, Nexans (PA:NEXS) which lost 4.12% to settle at 51.85 and Innate Pharma (PA:IPH) which was down 3.78% to 4.830 at the close.
Declining stocks outnumbered rising ones by 328 to 273 and 96 ended unchanged on the Paris Stock Exchange.
The CAC 40 VIX, which measures the implied volatility of CAC 40 options, was up 3.09% to 10.47.
In commodities trading, Gold Futures for February delivery was up 0.60% or 7.40 to $1249.10 a troy ounce. Meanwhile, Crude oil for delivery in January fell 0.65% or 0.37 to hit $56.77 a barrel, while the February Brent oil contract fell 1.23% or 0.78 to trade at $62.56 a barrel.
EUR/USD was up 0.20% to 1.1766, while EUR/GBP fell 0.10% to 0.8808.
The US Dollar Index Futures was down 0.21% at 93.86.