Investing.com – U.K. equities were higher at the close on Thursday, as gains in the Construction & Materials, General Industrial and Industrial Engineering sectors propelled shares higher.
At the close in London, the Investing.com United Kingdom 100 gained 0.98%.
The biggest gainers of the session on the Investing.com United Kingdom 100 were Smiths Group PLC (LON:SMIN), which rose 5.13% or 80.00 points to trade at 1638.50 at the close. Ocado Group PLC (LON:OCDO) added 4.36% or 53.50 points to end at 1281.50 and Ashtead Group PLC (LON:AHT) was up 4.22% or 90.00 points to 2223.00 in late trade.
Biggest losers included Micro Focus International PLC (LON:MCRO), which lost 32.40% or 504.00 points to trade at 1051.40 in late trade. NMC Health PLC (LON:NMC) declined 1.81% or 43.00 points to end at 2328.00 and St. James’s Place PLC (LON:SJP) shed 1.76% or 16.40 points to 914.00.
Advancing stocks outnumbered falling ones by 1350 to 741 and 220 ended unchanged on the London Stock Exchange.
In commodities trading, Gold Futures for December delivery was down 0.81% or 12.55 to $1536.55 a troy ounce. Meanwhile, Crude oil for delivery in October rose 1.31% or 0.73 to hit $56.51 a barrel, while the November Brent oil contract rose 0.55% or 0.33 to trade at $60.26 a barrel.
GBP/USD was down 0.23% to 1.2182, while EUR/GBP fell 0.01% to 0.9069.
The US Dollar Index Futures was up 0.35% at 98.463.