Investing.com – Belgium stocks were higher after the close on Friday, as gains in the Banking, Industrials and Financials sectors led shares higher.
At the close in Brussels, the BEL 20 rose 0.60%.
The best performers of the session on the BEL 20 were bpost NV (BR:BPOST), which rose 7.04% or 0.52 points to trade at 7.83 at the close. Meanwhile, Galapagos NV (AS:GLPG) added 2.75% or 2.400 points to end at 89.820 and UCB (BR:UCB) was up 1.86% or 1.38 points to 75.40 in late trade.
The worst performers of the session were Argen-X (BR:ARGX), which fell 0.67% or 0.60 points to trade at 89.60 at the close. Proximus NV (BR:PROX) declined 0.43% or 0.10 points to end at 23.27 and Umicore SA (BR:UMI) was down 0.42% or 0.15 points to 35.39.
Rising stocks outnumbered declining ones on the Brussels Stock Exchange by 70 to 41 and 12 ended unchanged.
Shares in Umicore SA (BR:UMI) fell to 52-week lows; down 0.42% or 0.15 to 35.39.
Gold Futures for February delivery was up 0.57% or 7.15 to $1250.75 a troy ounce. Elsewhere in commodities trading, Crude oil for delivery in January rose 4.14% or 2.13 to hit $53.62 a barrel, while the February Brent oil contract rose 4.48% or 2.69 to trade at $62.75 a barrel.
EUR/USD was up 0.10% to 1.1389, while EUR/GBP rose 0.55% to 0.8949.
The US Dollar Index Futures was down 0.07% at 96.695.