Investing.com – France equities were higher at the close on Wednesday, as gains in the Gas & Water, General Financial and Foods & Drugs sectors propelled shares higher.
At the close in Paris, the CAC 40 added 0.49%, while the SBF 120 index gained 0.42%.
The biggest gainers of the session on the CAC 40 were Atos SE (PA:ATOS), which rose 2.78% or 1.94 points to trade at 71.62 at the close. Dassault Systemes (PA:DAST) added 2.46% or 2.50 points to end at 104.30 and Air Liquide SA (PA:AIRP) was up 2.28% or 2.40 points to 107.65 in late trade.
Biggest losers included Airbus Group SE (PA:AIR), which lost 1.64% or 1.45 points to trade at 87.20 in late trade. Safran SA (PA:SAF) declined 0.79% or 0.85 points to end at 106.35 and STMicroelectronics NV (PA:STM) shed 0.66% or 0.080 points to 12.030.
The top performers on the SBF 120 were Plastic Omnium (PA:PLOF) which rose 3.79% to 19.84, Trigano (PA:TRIA) which was up 3.77% to settle at 83.85 and Ubisoft Entertainment (PA:UBIP) which gained 3.45% to close at 71.460.
The worst performers were Genfit (PA:GNFT) which was down 7.50% to 18.500 in late trade, Natixis (PA:CNAT) which lost 6.33% to settle at 4.171 and Nexans (PA:NEXS) which was down 5.25% to 23.46 at the close.
Declining stocks outnumbered rising ones by 291 to 279 and 92 ended unchanged on the Paris Stock Exchange.
The CAC 40 VIX, which measures the implied volatility of CAC 40 options, was down 4.68% to 19.37.
In commodities trading, Gold Futures for February delivery was up 0.26% or 3.20 to $1256.80 a troy ounce. Meanwhile, Crude oil for delivery in February rose 3.15% or 1.47 to hit $48.07 a barrel, while the February Brent oil contract rose 2.22% or 1.25 to trade at $57.51 a barrel.
EUR/USD was up 0.55% to 1.1425, while EUR/GBP rose 0.40% to 0.9025.
The US Dollar Index Futures was down 0.48% at 96.102.