U.K. shares higher at close of trade; Investing.com United Kingdom 100 up 0.77%

Investing.com – U.K. equities were higher at the close on Wednesday, as gains in the Automobiles & Parts, Electrical and Food & Drug Retailers sectors propelled shares higher.

At the close in London, the Investing.com United Kingdom 100 gained 0.77%.

The biggest gainers of the session on the Investing.com United Kingdom 100 were Barratt Developments PLC (LON:BDEV), which rose 4.31% or 26.80 points to trade at 648.00 at the close. Hargreaves Lansdown PLC (LON:HRGV) added 3.83% or 55.51 points to end at 1504.01 and Segro Plc (LON:SGRO) was up 3.77% or 34.20 points to 942.20 in late trade.

Biggest losers included Bunzl PLC (LON:BNZL), which lost 4.60% or 114.0 points to trade at 2362.0 in late trade. Standard Chartered PLC (LON:STAN) declined 2.04% or 9.80 points to end at 470.00 and Rosneft (LON:ROSNq) shed 1.80% or 0.11 points to 5.98.

Advancing stocks outnumbered falling ones by 1408 to 883 and 64 ended unchanged on the London Stock Exchange.

In commodities trading, Gold Futures for February delivery was up 0.30% or 5.65 to $1860.95 a troy ounce. Meanwhile, Crude oil for delivery in January fell 0.48% or 0.23 to hit $47.39 a barrel, while the February Brent oil contract fell 0.26% or 0.13 to trade at $50.63 a barrel.

GBP/USD was up 0.20% to 1.3487, while EUR/GBP rose 0.07% to 0.9032.

The US Dollar Index Futures was down 0.16% at 90.263.