Investing.com – U.K. equities were higher at the close on Friday, as gains in the Chemicals, Industrial Metals & Mining and Mobile Telecommunications sectors propelled shares higher.
At the close in London, the Investing.com United Kingdom 100 rose 0.36%.
The biggest gainers of the session on the Investing.com United Kingdom 100 were Johnson Matthey PLC (LON:JMAT), which rose 4.04% or 142.00 points to trade at 3655.00 at the close. Hikma Pharmaceuticals PLC (LON:HIK) added 3.00% or 40.50 points to end at 1392.50 and Travis Perkins PLC (LON:TPK) was up 2.86% or 38.50 points to 1384.00 in late trade.
Biggest losers included Royal Mail PLC (LON:RMG), which lost 2.52% or 12.80 points to trade at 496.20 in late trade. Diageo PLC (LON:DGE) declined 1.68% or 46.50 points to end at 2716.00 and Shire PLC (LON:SHP) shed 1.58% or 65.00 points to 4035.00.
Advancing stocks outnumbered falling ones by 1301 to 716 and 334 ended unchanged on the London Stock Exchange.
In commodities trading, Gold Futures for June delivery was down 0.24% or 3.10 to $1297.00 a troy ounce. Meanwhile, Crude oil for delivery in July fell 0.43% or 0.29 to hit $66.75 a barrel, while the August Brent oil contract fell 1.04% or 0.81 to trade at $76.75 a barrel.
GBP/USD was up 0.46% to 1.3358, while EUR/GBP fell 0.64% to 0.8738.
The US Dollar Index Futures was up 0.15% at 94.09.