France shares lower at close of trade; CAC 40 down 0.07%

Investing.com – France equities were lower at the close on Thursday, as losses in the Oil & Gas , Financials and Consumer Services sectors propelled shares lower.

At the close in Paris, the CAC 40 lost 0.07%, while the SBF 120 index declined 0.08%.

The biggest gainers of the session on the CAC 40 were STMicroelectronics NV (PA: STM ), which rose 4.39% or 0.625 points to trade at 14.850 at the close. WFD Unibail Rodamco NV (AS: URW ) added 1.70% or 2.54 points to end at 151.92 and Bouygues SA (PA: BOUY ) was up 1.50% or 0.48 points to 32.44 in late trade.

Biggest losers included EssilorLuxottica SA (PA: ESLX ), which lost 6.55% or 6.88 points to trade at 98.12 in late trade. Sodexo SA (PA: EXHO ) declined 2.61% or 2.62 points to end at 97.78 and BNP Paribas SA (PA: BNPP ) shed 2.60% or 1.15 points to 43.04.

The top performers on the SBF 120 were STMicroelectronics NV (PA: STM ) which rose 4.39% to 14.850, Ubisoft Entertainment (PA: UBIP ) which was up 3.16% to settle at 80.880 and Soitec SA (PA: SOIT ) which gained 2.51% to close at 71.550.

The worst performers were EssilorLuxottica SA (PA: ESLX ) which was down 6.55% to 98.12 in late trade, SES (PA: SESFd ) which lost 5.55% to settle at 14.05 and Elior Group (PA: ELIOR ) which was down 4.37% to 12.05 at the close.

Declining stocks outnumbered rising ones by 303 to 254 and 108 ended unchanged on the Paris Stock Exchange.

The CAC 40 VIX , which measures the implied volatility of CAC 40 options, was up 7.44% to 15.36 a new 1-month high.

In commodities trading, Gold Futures for April delivery was up 0.53% or 6.90 to $1308.60 a troy ounce. Meanwhile, Crude oil for delivery in May fell 0.58% or 0.35 to hit $59.88 a barrel, while the May Brent oil contract fell 1.07% or 0.73 to trade at $67.77 a barrel.

EUR/USD was down 0.45% to 1.1360, while EUR/GBP rose 0.43% to 0.8683.

The US Dollar Index Futures was up 0.78% at 95.942.