Investing.com – U.K. equities were higher at the close on Friday, as gains in the Pharmaceuticals & Biotech, Fixed Line Telecommunications and Mobile Telecommunications sectors propelled shares higher.
At the close in London, the Investing.com United Kingdom 100 added 0.62% to hit a new all time high.
The biggest gainers of the session on the Investing.com United Kingdom 100 were AstraZeneca PLC (LON:AZN), which rose 9.03% or 428.50 points to trade at 5176.00 at the close. BT Group PLC (LON:BT) added 2.72% or 8.10 points to end at 305.95 and Vodafone Group PLC (LON:VOD) was up 2.33% or 4.80 points to 211.05 in late trade.
Biggest losers included Provident Financial (LON:PFG), which lost 2.24% or 73.00 points to trade at 3192.00 in late trade. Hikma Pharmaceuticals PLC (LON:HIK) declined 2.01% or 36.00 points to end at 1759.00 and Persimmon PLC (LON:PSN) shed 1.87% or 45.00 points to 2360.00.
Advancing stocks outnumbered falling ones by 972 to 909 and 455 ended unchanged on the London Stock Exchange.
In commodities trading, Gold Futures for June delivery was up 0.37% or 4.48 to $1228.68 a troy ounce. Meanwhile, Crude oil for delivery in June fell 0.17% or 0.08 to hit $47.75 a barrel, while the July Brent oil contract unchanged 0.00% or 0.00 to trade at $50.77 a barrel.
GBP/USD was down 0.10% to 1.2873, while EUR/GBP rose 0.66% to 0.8485.
The US Dollar Index Futures was down 0.40% at 99.13.