Investing.com – U.K. equities were lower at the close on Friday, as losses in the Chemicals, Pharmaceuticals & Biotech and Gas, Water & Multiutilities sectors propelled shares lower.
At the close in London, the Investing.com United Kingdom 100 lost 0.14%.
The biggest gainers of the session on the Investing.com United Kingdom 100 were Whitbread PLC (LON:WTB), which rose 5.85% or 182.4 points to trade at 3302.4 at the close. Glencore PLC (LON:GLEN) added 4.69% or 11.60 points to end at 259.00 and EasyJet PLC (LON:EZJ) was up 4.14% or 33.00 points to 830.00 in late trade.
Biggest losers included Johnson Matthey PLC (LON:JMAT), which lost 4.02% or 121.1 points to trade at 2887.9 in late trade. Experian PLC (LON:EXPN) declined 2.57% or 70.0 points to end at 2650.0 and Aviva PLC (LON:AV) shed 2.46% or 8.60 points to 341.20.
Advancing stocks outnumbered falling ones by 1429 to 927 and 70 ended unchanged on the London Stock Exchange.
In commodities trading, Gold Futures for April delivery was up 0.97% or 17.45 to $1808.65 a troy ounce. Meanwhile, Crude oil for delivery in March rose 1.39% or 0.78 to hit $57.01 a barrel, while the April Brent oil contract rose 0.95% or 0.56 to trade at $59.56 a barrel.
GBP/USD was up 0.42% to 1.3728, while EUR/GBP rose 0.19% to 0.8764.
The US Dollar Index Futures was down 0.49% at 91.097.