U.K. shares higher at close of trade; Investing.com United Kingdom 100 up 1.02%

Investing.com – U.K. equities were higher at the close on Thursday, as gains in the Oil & Gas Producers, Industrial Metals & Mining and Mining sectors propelled shares higher.

At the close in London, the Investing.com United Kingdom 100 gained 1.02% to hit a new 6-month high.

The biggest gainers of the session on the Investing.com United Kingdom 100 were BP PLC (LON:BP), which rose 5.02% or 13.68 points to trade at 286.28 at the close. DS Smith PLC (LON:SMDS) added 4.66% or 16.70 points to end at 375.20 and Royal Dutch Shell PLC B (LON:RDSb) was up 4.63% or 61.8 points to 1396.6 in late trade.

Biggest losers included Ocado Group PLC (LON:OCDO), which lost 6.71% or 156.00 points to trade at 2170.00 in late trade. Persimmon PLC (LON:PSN) declined 5.03% or 135.0 points to end at 2550.0 and Barratt Developments PLC (LON:BDEV) shed 4.72% or 29.77 points to 601.03.

Declining stocks outnumbered rising ones by 1229 to 1018 and 77 ended unchanged on the London Stock Exchange.

In commodities trading, Gold Futures for February delivery was down 0.03% or 0.50 to $1838.00 a troy ounce. Meanwhile, Crude oil for delivery in January rose 4.31% or 1.96 to hit $47.48 a barrel, while the February Brent oil contract rose 4.03% or 1.97 to trade at $50.83 a barrel.

GBP/USD was down 0.94% to 1.3271, while EUR/GBP rose 1.26% to 0.9129.

The US Dollar Index Futures was down 0.16% at 90.938.