Investing.com – Belgium equities were lower at the close on Thursday, as losses in the Consumer Goods, Basic Materials and Industrials sectors propelled shares lower.
At the close in Brussels, the BEL 20 lost 0.87%.
The biggest gainers of the session on the BEL 20 were Proximus NV (BR:PROX), which rose 0.44% or 0.13 points to trade at 29.64 at the close. Cofinimmo-Sicafi (BR:COFB) added 0.29% or 0.30 points to end at 103.00 and Elia (BR:ELI) was up 0.21% or 0.090 points to 43.520 in late trade.
Biggest losers included NV Bekaert SA (BR:BEKB), which lost 3.07% or 1.10 points to trade at 34.71 in late trade. Delta Lloyd (AS:DLL) declined 2.72% or 0.15 points to end at 5.29 and Umicore NV (BR:UMI) shed 2.06% or 0.88 points to 41.51.
Declining stocks outnumbered rising ones by 75 to 70 and 10 ended unchanged on the Brussels Stock Exchange.
In commodities trading, Gold for April delivery was up 1.03% or 12.90 to $1270.30 a troy ounce. Meanwhile, Crude oil for delivery in April fell 1.98% or 0.76 to hit $37.53 a barrel, while the May Brent oil contract fell 2.65% or 1.09 to trade at $39.98 a barrel.
EUR/USD was up 1.64% to 1.1180, while EUR/GBP rose 0.79% to 0.7813.
The US Dollar Index was down 1.06% at 96.16.