U.K. shares higher at close of trade; Investing.com United Kingdom 100 up 0.22% By Investing.com

Investing.com – U.K. equities were higher at the close on Wednesday, as gains in the Insurance, Travel & Leisure and Industrial Engineering sectors propelled shares higher.

At the close in London, the Investing.com United Kingdom 100 gained 0.22%.

The biggest gainers of the session on the Investing.com United Kingdom 100 were Flutter Entertainment PLC (LON:FLTRF), which rose 3.23% or 430.0 points to trade at 13765.0 at the close. Admiral Group PLC (LON:ADML) added 2.60% or 82.0 points to end at 3237.0 and Bunzl PLC (LON:BNZL) was up 2.17% or 50.0 points to 2354.0 in late trade.

Biggest losers included Associated British Foods PLC (LON:ABF), which lost 1.82% or 43.0 points to trade at 2324.0 in late trade. Vodafone Group PLC (LON:VOD) declined 1.39% or 1.84 points to end at 130.16 and Glencore PLC (LON:GLEN) shed 1.23% or 3.95 points to 317.05.

Declining stocks outnumbered rising ones by 1230 to 987 and 223 ended unchanged on the London Stock Exchange.

In commodities trading, Gold Futures for August delivery was up 0.30% or 5.55 to $1861.95 a troy ounce. Meanwhile, Crude oil for delivery in July rose 0.50% or 0.36 to hit $72.48 a barrel, while the August Brent oil contract rose 0.88% or 0.65 to trade at $74.64 a barrel.

GBP/USD was up 0.24% to 1.4114, while EUR/GBP fell 0.26% to 0.8585.

The US Dollar Index Futures was down 0.02% at 90.483.