U.K. shares lower at close of trade; Investing.com United Kingdom 100 down 0.42% By Investing.com

Investing.com – U.K. equities were lower at the close on Friday, as losses in the Financial Services, Travel & Leisure and Aerospace & Defense sectors propelled shares lower.

At the close in London, the Investing.com United Kingdom 100 lost 0.42%.

The biggest gainers of the session on the Investing.com United Kingdom 100 were BT Group PLC (LON:BT), which rose 4.93% or 6.65 points to trade at 141.45 at the close. Standard Chartered PLC (LON:STAN) added 4.61% or 22.00 points to end at 499.30 and J Sainsbury PLC (LON:SBRY) was up 3.05% or 6.80 points to 229.70 in late trade.

Biggest losers included London Stock Exchange Group PLC (LON:LSEG), which lost 14.38% or 1364.0 points to trade at 8124.0 in late trade. Carnival PLC (LON:CCL) declined 11.58% or 200.5 points to end at 1531.0 and Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust PLC (LON:SMT) shed 6.53% or 71.00 points to 1017.00.

Declining stocks outnumbered rising ones by 1479 to 796 and 191 ended unchanged on the London Stock Exchange.

In commodities trading, Gold Futures for April delivery was up 0.01% or 0.20 to $1700.90 a troy ounce. Meanwhile, Crude oil for delivery in April rose 3.45% or 2.20 to hit $66.03 a barrel, while the May Brent oil contract rose 3.73% or 2.49 to trade at $69.23 a barrel.

GBP/USD was down 0.47% to 1.3828, while EUR/GBP rose 0.02% to 0.8611.

The US Dollar Index Futures was up 0.41% at 92.017.