Investing.com – U.K. equities were higher at the close on Friday, as gains in the Food & Drug Retailers, Life Insurance/Assurance and Electrical sectors propelled shares higher.
At the close in London, the Investing.com United Kingdom 100 rose 1.70%.
The biggest gainers of the session on the Investing.com United Kingdom 100 were Whitbread PLC (LON:WTB), which rose 4.88% or 199.00 points to trade at 4279.00 at the close. Shire PLC (LON:SHP) added 4.11% or 169.00 points to end at 4281.00 and Barratt Developments PLC (LON:BDEV) was up 3.94% or 22.000 points to 580.500 in late trade.
Biggest losers included Johnson Matthey PLC (LON:JMAT), which lost 0.69% or 20.00 points to trade at 2875.00 in late trade. Admiral Group PLC (LON:ADML) declined 0.27% or 5.00 points to end at 1873.00 and Randgold Resources Ltd (LON:RRS) shed 0.08% or 5.00 points to 6030.00.
Advancing stocks outnumbered falling ones by 1489 to 594 and 442 ended unchanged on the London Stock Exchange.
In commodities trading, Gold for June delivery was down 0.24% or 3.05 to $1251.75 a troy ounce. Meanwhile, Crude oil for delivery in July fell 0.25% or 0.12 to hit $48.55 a barrel, while the July Brent oil contract fell 0.12% or 0.06 to trade at $48.75 a barrel.
GBP/USD was down 0.69% to 1.4510, while EUR/GBP rose 0.77% to 0.7727.
The US Dollar Index was up 0.09% at 95.39.