Investing.com – Australia equities were lower at the close on Monday, as losses in the Metals & Mining, Materials and Resources sectors propelled shares lower.
At the close in Sydney, the S&P/ASX 200 fell 0.10%.
The biggest gainers of the session on the S&P/ASX 200 were Mesoblast Ltd (ASX:MSB), which rose 23.68% or 0.760 points to trade at 3.970 at the close. M2 Telecommunications Group Ltd (ASX:MTU) added 10.45% or 1.090 points to end at 11.520 and Sirius Resources NL (ASX:SIR) was up 6.02% or 0.150 points to 2.640 in late trade.
Biggest losers included Mineral Resources Ltd (ASX:MIN), which lost 10.26% or 0.715 points to trade at 6.255 in late trade. Iluka Resources Ltd (ASX:ILU) declined 6.36% or 0.560 points to end at 8.240 and Ainsworth Game Technology Ltd (ASX:AGI) shed 6.41% or 0.180 points to 2.630.
Declining stocks outnumbered rising ones by 509 to 485 and 185 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 6.25% to 13.402.
In commodities trading, Gold for June delivery was down 0.05% or 0.60 to $1204.00 a troy ounce. Meanwhile, Crude oil for delivery in May rose 0.20% or 0.10 to hit $51.74 a barrel, while the June Brent oil contract rose 0.06% or 0.04 to trade at $58.98 a barrel.
AUD/USD was down 1.12% to 0.7596, while AUD/JPY fell 1.04% to 91.46.
The US Dollar Index was up 0.15% at 99.78.