Investing.com – U.K. equities were higher at the close on Thursday, as gains in the Industrial Metals & Mining, Life Insurance/Assurance and Tobacco sectors propelled shares higher.
At the close in London, the Investing.com United Kingdom 100 rose 1.66%.
The biggest gainers of the session on the Investing.com United Kingdom 100 were Aviva PLC (LON:AV), which rose 6.70% or 25.800 points to trade at 410.800 at the close. Inmarsat PLC (LON:ISA) added 6.21% or 48.50 points to end at 829.00 and Standard Chartered PLC (LON:STAN) was up 5.16% or 31.700 points to 646.000 in late trade.
Biggest losers included Hikma Pharmaceuticals PLC (LON:HIK), which lost 16.79% or 448.00 points to trade at 2220.00 in late trade. Randgold Resources Ltd (LON:RRS) declined 3.84% or 345.00 points to end at 8635.00 and Next PLC (LON:NXT) shed 2.62% or 140.00 points to 5200.00.
Advancing stocks outnumbered falling ones by 1487 to 583 and 509 ended unchanged on the London Stock Exchange.
In commodities trading, Gold for December delivery was up 0.28% or 3.85 to $1368.55 a troy ounce. Meanwhile, Crude oil for delivery in September rose 2.28% or 0.93 to hit $41.76 a barrel, while the October Brent oil contract rose 1.95% or 0.84 to trade at $43.94 a barrel.
GBP/USD was down 1.49% to 1.3127, while EUR/GBP rose 1.39% to 0.8484.
The US Dollar Index was up 0.18% at 95.66.