U.K. shares lower at close of trade; Investing.com United Kingdom 100 down 0.56% By Investing.com

Investing.com – U.K. equities were lower at the close on Thursday, as losses in the Life Insurance/Assurance, Oil & Gas Producers and Fixed Line Telecommunications sectors propelled shares lower.

At the close in London, the Investing.com United Kingdom 100 lost 0.56%.

The biggest gainers of the session on the Investing.com United Kingdom 100 were Fresnillo PLC (LON:FRES), which rose 6.71% or 62.00 points to trade at 986.00 at the close. Tui AG (LON:TUIT) added 6.10% or 20.50 points to end at 356.50 and International Consolidated Airlines Group S.A. (LON:ICAG) was up 5.25% or 7.30 points to 146.30 in late trade.

Biggest losers included Prudential PLC (LON:PRU), which lost 7.53% or 101.04 points to trade at 1239.96 in late trade. Imperial Brands PLC (LON:IMB) declined 3.99% or 63.00 points to end at 1514.50 and Ocado Group PLC (LON:OCDO) shed 3.75% or 108.00 points to 2775.00.

Declining stocks outnumbered rising ones by 1319 to 1008 and 70 ended unchanged on the London Stock Exchange.

In commodities trading, Gold Futures for April delivery were up 0.55% or 10.10 to $1859.00 a troy ounce. Meanwhile, Crude oil for delivery in March fell 0.42% or 0.22 to hit $52.63 a barrel, while the April Brent oil contract fell 0.27% or 0.15 to trade at $55.38 a barrel.

GBP/USD was up 0.28% to 1.3724, while EUR/GBP fell 0.15% to 0.8833.

The US Dollar Index Futures was down 0.15% at 90.500.