LONDON: The British blue-chip index ended down on Monday with energy stocks tracking a decline in oil prices, while AstraZeneca marked its strongest close ever on optimism over its Covid-19 vaccine.

The commodity-heavy FTSE 100 index was down 0.5% on the day, with BP Plc and Royal Dutch Shell Plc among the biggest drags as oil prices fell in anticipation of weaker demand.

Heavyweight drugmaker AstraZeneca helped cap some losses, rising 1.5% after data showed its experimental Covid-19 vaccine was safe and produced an immune response in early-stage clinical trials in healthy volunteers.

Still, the stock ended largely off an intra-day record high hit in anticipation of its announcement. The mid-cap FTSE 250 closed 0.2% higher, propped up by Future PLC. The media firm surged more than 15% after it forecast annual performance to be at the top end of market expectations.

Among individual movers for the day, Marks and Spencer, one of Britain's best known high-street names, fell slightly on a report that it planned to announce hundreds of job cuts in the coming week.

BHP Group, the world's largest miner by market capitalization, ended flat ahead of its quarterly production results. Homebuilders gained about 0.8% as a report said a mini housing market boom was gathering pace after a tax cut by finance minister Rishi Sunak.