Investing.com – U.K. stocks were higher after the close on Thursday, as gains in the Industrial Engineering, Oil Equipment Services & Distribution and Food Producers sectors led shares higher.
At the close in London, the FTSE 100 added 0.63%.
The best performers of the session on the FTSE 100 were Weir Group PLC (LONDON:WEIR), which rose 4.20% or 67.00 points to trade at 1661.00 at the close. Meanwhile, Pearson PLC (LONDON:PSON) added 2.85% or 35.00 points to end at 1263.00 and Smiths Group PLC (LONDON:SMIN) was up 2.19% or 25.00 points to 1164.00 in late trade.
The worst performers of the session were BP PLC (LONDON:BP), which fell 1.19% or 5.10 points to trade at 422.00 at the close. Fresnillo PLC (LONDON:FRES) declined 1.18% or 8.00 points to end at 668.50 and Randgold Resources Ltd (LONDON:RRS) was down 0.39% or 16.00 points to 4086.00.
Rising stocks outnumbered declining ones on the London Stock Exchange by 1855 to 670 and 522 ended unchanged.
Gold for August delivery was down 0.35% or 4.00 to $1143.40 a troy ounce. Elsewhere in commodities trading, Crude oil for delivery in August fell 0.31% or 0.16 to hit $51.25 a barrel, while the September Brent oil contract rose 0.25% or 0.14 to trade at $57.27 a barrel.
GBP/USD was down 0.22% to 1.5604, while EUR/GBP fell 0.36% to 0.6977.
The US Dollar Index was up 0.43% at 97.71.