Investing.com – U.K. equities were lower at the close on Thursday, as losses in the General Retailers, Food Producers and Life Insurance/Assurance sectors propelled shares lower.
At the close in London, the Investing.com United Kingdom 100 fell 1.49%.
The biggest gainers of the session on the Investing.com United Kingdom 100 were Hikma Pharmaceuticals PLC (LON:HIK), which rose 1.50% or 28.00 points to trade at 1894.00 at the close. Capita PLC (LON:CPI) added 0.58% or 6.00 points to end at 1034.00 and CRH PLC (LON:CRH) was up 0.52% or 10.00 points to 1948.00 in late trade.
Biggest losers included Next PLC (LON:NXT), which lost 15.09% or 1005.00 points to trade at 5655.00 in late trade. Standard Chartered PLC (LON:STAN) declined 7.76% or 37.050 points to end at 440.600 and Aberdeen Asset Management PLC (LON:ADN) shed 5.92% or 16.00 points to 254.40.
Declining stocks outnumbered rising ones by 1532 to 527 and 455 ended unchanged on the London Stock Exchange.
In commodities trading, Gold for April delivery was down 0.28% or 3.40 to $1220.60 a troy ounce. Meanwhile, Crude oil for delivery in May fell 1.48% or 0.59 to hit $39.20 a barrel, while the May Brent oil contract fell 0.84% or 0.34 to trade at $40.13 a barrel.
GBP/USD was up 0.29% to 1.4160, while EUR/GBP fell 0.43% to 0.7888.
The US Dollar Index was up 0.12% at 96.18.