NEW YORK: U.K. stocks were higher after the close on Wednesday, as gains in the Food & Drug Retailers, Food Producers and Construction & Materials sectors led shares higher.
At the close in London, the FTSE 100 added 1.13%.
The best performers of the session on the FTSE 100 were Standard Chartered (LONDON:STAN), which rose 5.80% or 60.00 points to trade at 1094.00 at the close. Meanwhile, Associated British Foods (LONDON:ABF) added 5.35% or 156.00 points to end at 3070.00 and WM Morrison Supermarkets PLC (LONDON:MRW) was up 4.96% or 8.50 points to 179.90 in late trade.
The worst performers of the session were Weir Group (LONDON:WEIR), which fell 0.42% or 8.00 points to trade at 1914.00 at the close. Marks & Spencer Group (LONDON:MKS) declined 0.27% or 1.50 points to end at 553.50 and Pearson (LONDON:PSON) was down 0.08% or 1.00 points to 1272.00.
Rising stocks outnumbered declining ones on the London Stock Exchange by 1890 to 715 and 408 ended unchanged.
Gold for August delivery was up 0.77% or 9.10 to $1186.70 a troy ounce. Elsewhere in commodities trading, Crude oil for delivery in July rose 1.01% or 0.61 to hit $60.75 a barrel, while the July Brent oil contract rose 0.62% or 0.41 to trade at $65.28 a barrel.
GBP/USD was up 0.74% to 1.5498, while EUR/GBP fell 0.63% to 0.7288.
The US Dollar Index was down 0.40% at 94.78.
