Investing.com – Belgium equities were lower at the close on Wednesday, as losses in the Telecoms, Financials and Basic Materials sectors propelled shares lower.
At the close in Brussels, the BEL 20 fell 1.46%.
The biggest gainers of the session on the BEL 20 were NV Bekaert SA (BR:BEKB), which rose 0.22% or 0.09 points to trade at 39.08 at the close. UCB (BR:UCB) fell 0.18% or 0.12 points to end at 66.59 and Umicore NV (BR:UMI) was down 0.20% or 0.10 points to 46.62 in late trade.
Biggest losers included KBC (BR:KBC), which lost 3.59% or 1.490 points to trade at 40.010 in late trade. Proximus NV (BR:PROX) declined 3.19% or 0.89 points to end at 27.00 and Telenet Group (BR:TNET) shed 2.84% or 1.17 points to 40.03.
Declining stocks outnumbered rising ones by 123 to 18 and 6 ended unchanged on the Brussels Stock Exchange.
In commodities trading, Gold for August delivery was up 0.60% or 8.20 to $1366.90 a troy ounce. Meanwhile, Crude oil for delivery in August rose 0.92% or 0.43 to hit $47.03 a barrel, while the September Brent oil contract rose 0.65% or 0.31 to trade at $48.27 a barrel.
EUR/USD was up 0.14% to 1.1092, while EUR/GBP rose 0.67% to 0.8561.
The US Dollar Index was down 0.08% at 96.19.