Investing.com – Australia equities were lower at the close on Wednesday, as losses in the Energy, Resources and IT sectors propelled shares lower.
At the close in Sydney, the S&P/ASX 200 fell 0.60%.
The biggest gainers of the session on the S&P/ASX 200 were Covermore Fpo (AX:CVO), which rose 11.49% or 0.143 points to trade at 1.383 at the close. Evolution Mining Ltd (AX:EVN) added 6.68% or 0.185 points to end at 2.955 and St Barbara Ltd (AX:SBM) was up 5.24% or 0.175 points to 3.515 in late trade.
Biggest losers included Mesoblast Ltd (AX:MSB), which lost 6.20% or 0.075 points to trade at 1.135 in late trade. CYBG PLC (AX:CYB) declined 5.43% or 0.210 points to end at 3.660 and Origin Energy Ltd (AX:ORG) shed 4.40% or 0.256 points to 5.564.
Declining stocks outnumbered rising ones by 582 to 452 and 292 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 1.72% to 19.232.
In commodities trading, Gold for August delivery was up 1.03% or 14.05 to $1372.75 a troy ounce. Meanwhile, Crude oil for delivery in August rose 0.30% or 0.14 to hit $46.74 a barrel, while the September Brent oil contract rose 0.40% or 0.19 to trade at $48.15 a barrel.
AUD/USD was down 0.35% to 0.7436, while AUD/JPY fell 0.99% to 75.16.
The US Dollar Index was up 0.14% at 96.40.