Investing.com – Belgium equities were higher at the close on Thursday, as gains in the Healthcare, Utilities and Financials sectors propelled shares higher.
At the close in Brussels, the BEL 20 gained 0.54%.
The biggest gainers of the session on the BEL 20 were Galapagos NV (AS:GLPG), which rose 2.07% or 1.740 points to trade at 85.860 at the close. UCB (BR:UCB) added 1.41% or 0.94 points to end at 67.60 and Ageas (BR:AGES) was up 1.14% or 0.490 points to 43.490 in late trade.
Biggest losers included Proximus NV (BR:PROX), which lost 2.33% or 0.61 points to trade at 25.56 in late trade. bpost NV (BR:BPOST) declined 2.30% or 0.50 points to end at 21.24 and Ontex Group (BR:ONTEX) shed 0.73% or 0.16 points to 21.90.
Advancing stocks outnumbered falling ones by 56 to 51 and 17 ended unchanged on the Brussels Stock Exchange.
In commodities trading, Gold Futures for April delivery was down 0.58% or 7.70 to $1317.90 a troy ounce. Meanwhile, Crude oil for delivery in April rose 0.56% or 0.34 to hit $61.30 a barrel, while the May Brent oil contract rose 0.48% or 0.31 to trade at $65.20 a barrel.
EUR/USD was down 0.36% to 1.2323, while EUR/GBP fell 0.34% to 0.8828.
The US Dollar Index Futures was up 0.29% at 90.01.