Investing.com – U.K. equities were lower at the close on Friday, as losses in the Automobiles & Parts, Pharmaceuticals & Biotech and Industrial Metals & Mining sectors propelled shares lower.
At the close in London, the Investing.com United Kingdom 100 declined 0.58%.
The biggest gainers of the session on the Investing.com United Kingdom 100 were Informa PLC (LON:INF), which rose 2.64% or 20.00 points to trade at 778.20 at the close. Land Securities Group PLC (LON:LAND) added 2.55% or 24.80 points to end at 995.80 and Legal & General Group PLC (LON:LGEN) was up 2.25% or 7.00 points to 318.40 in late trade.
Biggest losers included Royal Bank of Scotland Group PLC (LON:RBS), which lost 6.82% or 15.60 points to trade at 213.10 in late trade. AstraZeneca PLC (LON:AZN) declined 4.28% or 326.0 points to end at 7300.0 and BAE Systems PLC (LON:BAES) shed 2.81% or 18.60 points to 643.20.
Advancing stocks outnumbered falling ones by 1170 to 944 and 238 ended unchanged on the London Stock Exchange.
In commodities trading, Gold Futures for April delivery was up 0.50% or 7.95 to $1586.75 a troy ounce. Meanwhile, Crude oil for delivery in March rose 0.74% or 0.38 to hit $51.80 a barrel, while the April Brent oil contract rose 0.94% or 0.53 to trade at $56.87 a barrel.
GBP/USD was up 0.00% to 1.3046, while EUR/GBP rose 0.06% to 0.8313.
The US Dollar Index Futures was down 0.00% at 98.957.