France shares higher at close of trade; CAC 40 up 1.62%

Investing.com – France equities were higher at the close on Friday, as gains in the Oil & Gas , Healthcare and Gas & Water sectors propelled shares higher.

At the close in Paris, the CAC 40 rose 1.62%, while the SBF 120 index gained 1.61%.

The biggest gainers of the session on the CAC 40 were Sanofi SA (PA: SASY ), which rose 4.40% or 3.30 points to trade at 78.32 at the close. Worldline SA (PA: WLN ) added 3.43% or 1.950 points to end at 58.850 and Dassault Systemes SE (PA: DAST ) was up 2.65% or 3.50 points to 135.35 in late trade.

Biggest losers included Societe Generale SA (PA: SOGN ), which lost 0.90% or 0.20 points to trade at 22.11 in late trade. BNP Paribas SA (PA: BNPP ) declined 0.46% or 0.19 points to end at 40.81 and Peugeot SA (PA: PEUP ) shed 0.29% or 0.06 points to 20.54.

The top performers on the SBF 120 were Soitec SA (PA: SOIT ) which rose 8.48% to 83.800, Vallourec (PA: VLLP ) which was up 5.51% to settle at 2.220 and Mercialys SA (PA: MERY ) which gained 4.48% to close at 11.65.

The worst performers were DBV Technologies (PA: DBV ) which was down 2.05% to 16.280 in late trade, Genfit (PA: GNFT ) which lost 2.00% to settle at 21.520 and Air France KLM SA (PA: AIRF ) which was down 1.08% to 8.064 at the close.

Advancing stocks outnumbered falling ones by 385 to 173 and 96 ended unchanged on the Paris Stock Exchange.

The CAC 40 VIX , which measures the implied volatility of CAC 40 options, was down 4.76% to 14.56.

In commodities trading, Gold Futures for August delivery was up 0.37% or 4.95 to $1347.65 a troy ounce. Meanwhile, Crude oil for delivery in July rose 2.17% or 1.14 to hit $53.73 a barrel, while the August Brent oil contract rose 2.16% or 1.33 to trade at $63.00 a barrel.

EUR/USD was up 0.59% to 1.1340, while EUR/GBP rose 0.24% to 0.8896.

The US Dollar Index Futures was down 0.55% at 96.468.