Investing.com – Australia equities were lower at the close on Wednesday, as losses in the Financials, Consumer Discretionary and Gold sectors propelled shares lower.
At the close in Sydney, the S&P/ASX 200 fell 0.06%.
The biggest gainers of the session on the S&P/ASX 200 were Omni Bridgeway Ltd (ASX:OBL), which rose 49.48% or 0.48 points to trade at 1.45 at the close. Cromwell Property Group (ASX:CMW) added 12.16% or 0.05 points to end at 0.41 and Kogan.com Ltd (ASX:KGN) was up 9.11% or 0.51 points to 6.11 in late trade.
Biggest losers included Insignia Financial Ltd (ASX:IFL), which lost 4.17% or 0.15 points to trade at 3.45 in late trade. Nickel Mines Ltd (ASX:NIC) declined 3.51% or 0.03 points to end at 0.82 and St Barbara Ltd (ASX:SBM) shed 1.61% or 0.01 points to 0.31.
Declining stocks outnumbered rising ones by 567 to 531 and 460 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 down 3.91% to 9.77 a new 1-month low.
In commodities trading, Gold Futures for February delivery was up 0.06% or 1.72 to $2,663.72 a troy ounce. Meanwhile, Crude oil for delivery in January fell 0.50% or 0.35 to hit $69.73 a barrel, while the February Brent oil contract rose 0.11% or 0.08 to trade at $73.27 a barrel.
AUD/USD was unchanged 0.35% to 0.63, while AUD/JPY fell 0.39% to 96.89.
The US Dollar Index Futures was down 0.05% at 106.61.