Investing.com – U.K. stocks were higher after the close on Friday, as gains in the Pharmaceuticals & Biotech, Fixed Line Telecommunications and Mobile Telecommunications sectors led shares higher.
At the close in London, the Investing.com United Kingdom 100 added 0.62% to hit a new all time high.
The best performers of the session on the Investing.com United Kingdom 100 were AstraZeneca PLC (LON:AZN), which rose 9.03% or 428.50 points to trade at 5176.00 at the close. Meanwhile, BT Group PLC (LON:BT) added 2.72% or 8.10 points to end at 305.95 and Vodafone Group PLC (LON:VOD) was up 2.33% or 4.80 points to 211.05 in late trade.
The worst performers of the session were Provident Financial (LON:PFG), which fell 2.24% or 73.00 points to trade at 3192.00 at the close. Hikma Pharmaceuticals PLC (LON:HIK) declined 2.01% or 36.00 points to end at 1759.00 and Persimmon PLC (LON:PSN) was down 1.87% or 45.00 points to 2360.00.
Rising stocks outnumbered declining ones on the London Stock Exchange by 972 to 909 and 455 ended unchanged.
Gold Futures for June delivery was up 0.37% or 4.50 to $1228.70 a troy ounce. Elsewhere in commodities trading, Crude oil for delivery in June fell 0.17% or 0.08 to hit $47.75 a barrel, while the July Brent oil contract unchanged 0.00% or 0.00 to trade at $50.77 a barrel.
GBP/USD was down 0.10% to 1.2873, while EUR/GBP rose 0.66% to 0.8485.
The US Dollar Index Futures was down 0.40% at 99.13.