Investing.com – Belgium equities were lower at the close on Thursday, as losses in the Healthcare, Utilities and Basic Materials sectors propelled shares lower.
At the close in Brussels, the BEL 20 lost 1.74%.
The biggest gainers of the session on the BEL 20 were Elia (BR:ELI), which rose 0.76% or 0.330 points to trade at 43.910 at the close. bpost NV (BR:BPOST) fell 0.43% or 0.10 points to end at 24.43 and Ontex Group (BR:ONTEX) was down 0.56% or 0.16 points to 28.49 in late trade.
Biggest losers included UCB (BR:UCB), which lost 4.27% or 3.07 points to trade at 68.78 in late trade. Galapagos NV (AS:GLPG) declined 2.34% or 0.895 points to end at 37.340 and Umicore NV (BR:UMI) shed 2.32% or 1.00 points to 42.30.
Declining stocks outnumbered rising ones by 104 to 44 and 7 ended unchanged on the Brussels Stock Exchange.
In commodities trading, Gold for April delivery was down 0.28% or 3.40 to $1220.60 a troy ounce. Meanwhile, Crude oil for delivery in May fell 0.78% or 0.31 to hit $39.48 a barrel, while the May Brent oil contract fell 99.01% or 40.07 to trade at $0.40 a barrel.
EUR/USD was down 0.10% to 1.1170, while EUR/GBP fell 0.48% to 0.7884.
The US Dollar Index was up 0.11% at 96.17.