Investing.com – Australia equities were lower at the close on Tuesday, as losses in the Energy, Resources and Metals & Mining sectors propelled shares lower.
At the close in Sydney, the S&P/ASX 200 declined 1.43%.
The biggest gainers of the session on the S&P/ASX 200 were Covermore Fpo (AX:CVO), which rose 3.82% or 0.055 points to trade at 1.495 at the close. Sigma Pharmaceuticals Ltd (AX:SIP) added 3.28% or 0.030 points to end at 0.945 and ALS Ltd (AX:ALQ) was up 2.85% or 0.120 points to 4.330 in late trade.
Biggest losers included Whitehaven Coal Ltd (AX:WHC), which lost 8.05% or 0.060 points to trade at 0.685 in late trade. Beach Energy Ltd (AX:BPT) declined 7.89% or 0.060 points to end at 0.700 and Liquefied Natural Gas Ltd (AX:LNG) shed 7.75% or 0.050 points to 0.595.
Declining stocks outnumbered rising ones by 618 to 315 and 285 ended unchanged on the Sydney Stock Exchange.
The S&P/ASX 200 VIX, which measures the implied volatility of S&P/ASX 200 options, was up 5.27% to 17.720.
In commodities trading, Gold for April delivery was down 1.20% or 14.90 to $1230.20 a troy ounce. Meanwhile, Crude oil for delivery in April fell 1.29% or 0.48 to hit $36.70 a barrel, while the May Brent oil contract fell 1.11% or 0.44 to trade at $39.09 a barrel.
AUD/USD was down 0.32% to 0.7491, while AUD/JPY fell 0.69% to 84.94.
The US Dollar Index was down 0.01% at 96.59.