Investing.com – U.K. equities were higher at the close on Thursday, as gains in the Beverage, Industrial Engineering and Tobacco sectors propelled shares higher.
At the close in London, the Investing.com United Kingdom 100 rose 0.01%.
The biggest gainers of the session on the Investing.com United Kingdom 100 were Diageo PLC (LON:DGE), which rose 3.60% or 77.00 points to trade at 2218.00 at the close. Ashtead Group PLC (LON:AHT) added 3.45% or 55.00 points to end at 1649.00 and Smiths Group PLC (LON:SMIN) was up 2.55% or 38.00 points to 1530.00 in late trade.
Biggest losers included Sage Group PLC (LON:SGE), which lost 5.45% or 34.50 points to trade at 599.00 in late trade. Unilever PLC (LON:ULVR) declined 4.70% or 157.50 points to end at 3191.00 and Whitbread PLC (LON:WTB) shed 3.92% or 159.00 points to 3900.00.
Advancing stocks outnumbered falling ones by 983 to 948 and 404 ended unchanged on the London Stock Exchange.
In commodities trading, Gold for February delivery was down 0.91% or 10.85 to $1186.95 a troy ounce. Meanwhile, Crude oil for delivery in March rose 2.20% or 1.16 to hit $53.91 a barrel, while the March Brent oil contract rose 2.38% or 1.31 to trade at $56.39 a barrel.
GBP/USD was down 0.37% to 1.2588, while EUR/GBP fell 0.29% to 0.8481.
The US Dollar Index was up 0.65% at 100.56.