France shares higher at close of trade; CAC 40 up 1.59%

Investing.com – France equities were higher at the close on Wednesday, as gains in the Healthcare , Utilities and Technology sectors propelled shares higher.

At the close in Paris, the CAC 40 rose 1.59%, while the SBF 120 index gained 1.53%.

The biggest gainers of the session on the CAC 40 were Sanofi SA (PA: SASY ), which rose 3.12% or 2.60 points to trade at 85.96 at the close. Valeo SA (PA: VLOF ) added 3.12% or 1.95 points to end at 64.35 and Vinci SA (PA: SGEF ) was up 2.60% or 1.95 points to 77.07 in late trade.

Biggest losers included TechnipFMC PLC (PA: FTI ), which lost 0.06% or 0.01 points to trade at 24.22 in late trade. Airbus Group SE (PA: AIR ) added 0.27% or 0.20 points to end at 74.64 and Credit Agricole SA (PA: CAGR ) gained 0.27% or 0.040 points to 14.745.

The top performers on the SBF 120 were DBV Technologies (PA: DBV ) which rose 5.81% to 69.370, Elis Services SA (PA: ELIS ) which was up 4.04% to settle at 20.35 and Bureau Veritas (PA: BVI ) which gained 3.44% to close at 19.86.

The worst performers were Genfit (PA: GNFT ) which was down 4.66% to 26.000 in late trade, Vicat (PA: VCTP ) which lost 0.76% to settle at 61.73 and Nexity (PA: NEXI ) which was down 0.69% to 48.07 at the close.

Advancing stocks outnumbered falling ones by 413 to 186 and 99 ended unchanged on the Paris Stock Exchange.

The CAC 40 VIX , which measures the implied volatility of CAC 40 options, was down 8.13% to 13.36.

In commodities trading, Gold Futures for August delivery was up 0.46% or 5.62 to $1220.32 a troy ounce. Meanwhile, Crude oil for delivery in August rose 1.44% or 0.65 to hit $45.69 a barrel, while the September Brent oil contract rose 0.97% or 0.46 to trade at $47.98 a barrel.

EUR/USD was down 0.48% to 1.1411, while EUR/GBP fell 0.81% to 0.8854.

The US Dollar Index Futures was up 0.05% at 95.54.