France shares lower at close of trade; CAC 40 down 0.16%

Investing.com – France equities were lower at the close on Wednesday, as losses in the Financials , Consumer Services and Basic Materials sectors propelled shares lower.

At the close in Paris, the CAC 40 lost 0.16%, while the SBF 120 index lost 0.22%.

The biggest gainers of the session on the CAC 40 were Publicis Groupe SA (PA: PUBP ), which rose 1.00% or 0.50 points to trade at 50.36 at the close. Air Liquide SA (PA: AIRP ) added 0.86% or 0.95 points to end at 111.80 and Danone SA (PA: DANO ) was up 0.64% or 0.43 points to 67.36 in late trade.

Biggest losers included STMicroelectronics NV (PA: STM ), which lost 3.68% or 0.545 points to trade at 14.245 in late trade. Dassault Systemes SE (PA: DAST ) declined 2.70% or 3.55 points to end at 128.00 and Valeo SA (PA: VLOF ) shed 2.68% or 0.76 points to 27.56.

The top performers on the SBF 120 were Eramet SA (PA: ERMT ) which rose 4.63% to 54.25, Eurofins Scientific SE (PA: EUFI ) which was up 4.13% to settle at 373.40 and Television Francaise 1 SA (PA: TFFP ) which gained 2.82% to close at 8.385.

The worst performers were DBV Technologies (PA: DBV ) which was down 14.96% to 14.840 in late trade, ALD SA (PA: ALDA ) which lost 4.62% to settle at 12.80 and STMicroelectronics NV (PA: STM ) which was down 3.68% to 14.245 at the close.

Declining stocks outnumbered rising ones by 327 to 256 and 92 ended unchanged on the Paris Stock Exchange.

The CAC 40 VIX , which measures the implied volatility of CAC 40 options, was down 0.62% to 12.96.

In commodities trading, Gold Futures for April delivery was up 0.14% or 1.75 to $1286.45 a troy ounce. Meanwhile, Crude oil for delivery in April fell 0.64% or 0.36 to hit $56.20 a barrel, while the May Brent oil contract rose 0.12% or 0.08 to trade at $65.94 a barrel.

EUR/USD was up 0.04% to 1.1310, while EUR/GBP rose 0.12% to 0.8587.

The US Dollar Index Futures was down 0.01% at 96.787.