Investing.com – Belgium equities were lower at the close on Thursday, as losses in the Healthcare, Basic Materials and Utilities sectors propelled shares lower.
At the close in Brussels, the BEL 20 declined 0.46%.
The biggest gainers of the session on the BEL 20 were Ackermans V.Haaren (BR:ACKB), which rose 1.02% or 1.35 points to trade at 133.35 at the close. Proximus NV (BR:PROX) added 0.71% or 0.20 points to end at 27.85 and bpost NV (BR:BPOST) was up 0.49% or 0.12 points to 23.50 in late trade.
Biggest losers included UCB (BR:UCB), which lost 2.73% or 1.87 points to trade at 66.68 in late trade. ING Groep NV (AS:INGA) declined 0.97% or 0.130 points to end at 13.205 and Ontex Group (BR:ONTEX) shed 0.83% or 0.24 points to 28.84.
Declining stocks outnumbered rising ones by 70 to 45 and 10 ended unchanged on the Brussels Stock Exchange.
In commodities trading, Gold Futures for April delivery was up 1.35% or 16.65 to $1249.95 a troy ounce. Meanwhile, Crude oil for delivery in April rose 1.49% or 0.80 to hit $54.39 a barrel, while the April Brent oil contract rose 1.22% or 0.68 to trade at $56.52 a barrel.
EUR/USD was up 0.26% to 1.0583, while EUR/GBP fell 0.58% to 0.8431.
The US Dollar Index Futures was down 0.35% at 100.96.