France shares higher at close of trade; CAC 40 up 0.25%

Investing.com – France equities were higher at the close on Wednesday, as gains in the Gas & Water , General Financial and Foods & Drugs sectors propelled shares higher.

At the close in Paris, the CAC 40 rose 0.25%, while the SBF 120 index added 0.27%.

The biggest gainers of the session on the CAC 40 were WFD Unibail Rodamco NV (AS: URW ), which rose 3.62% or 5.35 points to trade at 153.25 at the close. Bouygues SA (PA: BOUY ) added 1.84% or 0.61 points to end at 33.71 and Vinci SA (PA: SGEF ) was up 1.64% or 1.44 points to 89.44 in late trade.

Biggest losers included Airbus Group SE (PA: AIR ), which lost 1.69% or 2.00 points to trade at 116.50 in late trade. Valeo SA (PA: VLOF ) declined 1.67% or 0.48 points to end at 28.34 and Societe Generale SA (PA: SOGN ) shed 1.26% or 0.34 points to 26.26.

The top performers on the SBF 120 were Television Francaise 1 SA (PA: TFFP ) which rose 3.70% to 8.550, Electricite de France SA (PA: EDF ) which was up 3.69% to settle at 12.36 and WFD Unibail Rodamco NV (AS: URW ) which gained 3.62% to close at 153.25.

The worst performers were Dassault Aviation SA (PA: AVMD ) which was down 3.49% to 1300.00 in late trade, Vicat (PA: VCTP ) which lost 3.16% to settle at 44.40 and Eutelsat Communications SA (PA: ETL ) which was down 3.06% to 15.07 at the close.

Advancing stocks outnumbered falling ones by 325 to 233 and 104 ended unchanged on the Paris Stock Exchange.

The CAC 40 VIX , which measures the implied volatility of CAC 40 options, was up 4.11% to 14.53.

In commodities trading, Gold Futures for June delivery was up 0.29% or 3.75 to $1312.05 a troy ounce. Meanwhile, Crude oil for delivery in May rose 0.75% or 0.48 to hit $64.46 a barrel, while the June Brent oil contract rose 1.42% or 1.00 to trade at $71.61 a barrel.

EUR/USD was up 0.09% to 1.1272, while EUR/GBP fell 0.12% to 0.8609.

The US Dollar Index Futures was down 0.08% at 96.532.