Belgium shares higher at close of trade; BEL 20 up 0.60%

Investing.com – Belgium equities were higher at the close on Friday, as gains in the Banking , Industrials and Financials sectors propelled shares higher.

At the close in Brussels, the BEL 20 rose 0.60%.

The biggest gainers 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. 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.

Biggest losers included Argen-X (BR: ARGX ), which lost 0.67% or 0.60 points to trade at 89.60 in late trade. Proximus NV (BR: PROX ) declined 0.43% or 0.10 points to end at 23.27 and Umicore SA (BR: UMI ) shed 0.42% or 0.15 points to 35.39.

Advancing stocks outnumbered falling ones by 70 to 41 and 12 ended unchanged on the Brussels Stock Exchange.

In commodities trading, Gold Futures for February delivery was up 0.57% or 7.05 to $1250.65 a troy ounce. Meanwhile, 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 4.43% or 2.66 to trade at $62.72 a barrel.

EUR/USD was up 0.08% to 1.1387, while EUR/GBP rose 0.55% to 0.8949.

The US Dollar Index Futures was down 0.06% at 96.708.