Investing.com – U.K. stocks were higher after the close on Thursday, as gains in the Industrial Metals & Mining, Household Goods & Home Construction and Food & Drug Retailers sectors led shares higher.
At the close in London, the FTSE 100 rose 0.21% to hit a new all time high.
The best performers of the session on the FTSE 100 were Standard Chartered (LONDON:STAN), which rose 5.37% or 49.70 points to trade at 976.00 at the close. Meanwhile, Persimmon (LONDON:PSN) added 4.39% or 74.00 points to end at 1758.00 and Kingfisher (LONDON:KGF) was up 3.21% or 11.20 points to 360.30 in late trade.
The worst performers of the session were Reed Elsevier (LONDON:REL), which fell 4.80% or 57.00 points to trade at 1130.00 at the close. RSA Insurance Group Plc (LONDON:RSA) declined 4.71% or 21.200 points to end at 429.100 and easyJet Plc (LONDON:EZJ) was down 4.47% or 81.00 points to 1732.00.
Rising stocks outnumbered declining ones on the London Stock Exchange by 1102 to 958 and 391 ended unchanged.
Shares in Persimmon (LONDON:PSN) rose to all time highs; rising 4.39% or 74.00 to 1758.00.
Gold for April delivery was up 0.61% or 7.30 to $1208.80 a troy ounce. Elsewhere in commodities trading, Crude Oil for delivery in April fell 3.08% or 1.57 to hit $49.42 a barrel, while the April Brent Oil contract fell 0.84% or 0.52 to trade at $61.12 a barrel.
GBP/USD was down 0.68% to 1.5424, while EUR/GBP fell 0.66% to 0.7268.
The US Dollar Index was up 1.05% at 95.23.