Market close overview
U.K. stocks finished the trading session lower on Friday as losses in Aerospace & Defense, Mining and Fixed Line Telecommunications pushed the market down. At the London close the Investing.com United Kingdom 100 fell 0.36%.
Winners and losers
- Leading the gainers was BT Group PLC (LON:BT), which climbed 6.59% - an increase of 14.60 points - to end the day at 236.20. The share price rise took BT to five-year highs.
- Whitbread PLC (LON:WTB) added 3.79%, gaining 88.00 points to finish at 2,410.00.
- JD Sports Fashion PLC (LON:JD) rose 2.85%, up 2.08 points to 75.08 in late trade.
- On the downside, EasyJet PLC (LON:EZJ) fell 3.37%, a loss of 12.60 points, to close at 361.30.
- Rolls-Royce Holdings PLC (LON:RR) declined 3.11%, down 39.20 points to 1,219.80.
- BAE Systems PLC (LON:BAES) dropped 2.91%, losing 58.00 points to end the session at 1,933.80.
Market breadth
On the London Stock Exchange, falling shares outnumbered advancing ones by 978 to 732, while 570 stocks finished unchanged.
Commodities and currencies
Gold futures for June delivery were up 0.16%, gaining 7.54 to trade at $4,718.44 a troy ounce. Crude oil for June delivery rose 1.15%, up 1.09 to $95.90 a barrel, while the July Brent contract increased 1.55%, or 1.55, to trade at $101.61 a barrel.
In currency markets, the pound strengthened against the dollar with GBP/USD up 0.46% to 1.36. EUR/GBP moved 0.12% to 0.86. The US Dollar Index Futures was down 0.17% at 97.78.
What this means
Friday's session showed mixed sector performance: telecom and leisure names posted notable gains while aerospace and defense, plus mining and fixed-line telecom firms, were among the larger drags on the index. The underlying breadth figures reflected a market with more declines than advances.