Investing.com – Australia equities were lower at the close on Friday, as losses in the Metals & Mining, Materials and Resources sectors propelled shares lower.
At the close in Sydney, the S&P/ASX 200 lost 0.12%.
The biggest gainers of the session on the S&P/ASX 200 were Clinuvel Pharmaceuticals Ltd (ASX:CUV), which rose 14.63% or 2.22 points to trade at 17.39 at the close. EML Payments Ltd (ASX:EML) added 6.01% or 0.06 points to end at 0.97 and Mesoblast Ltd (ASX:MSB) was up 5.24% or 0.06 points to 1.11 in late trade.
Biggest losers included Seven Group Holdings Ltd (ASX:SVW), which lost 3.73% or 1.40 points to trade at 36.18 in late trade. Zip Co Ltd (ASX:ZIP) declined 2.96% or 0.05 points to end at 1.64 and Nuix Ltd (ASX:NXL) shed 2.79% or 0.10 points to 3.48.
Advancing stocks outnumbered falling ones by 561 to 540 and 436 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 1.28% to 11.16.
In commodities trading, Gold Futures for August delivery was up 0.30% or 7.20 to $2,372.50 a troy ounce. Meanwhile, Crude oil for delivery in August fell 0.46% or 0.39 to hit $83.67 a barrel, while the September Brent oil contract fell 0.35% or 0.31 to trade at $87.12 a barrel.
AUD/USD was unchanged 0.07% to 0.67, while AUD/JPY fell 0.31% to 108.13.
The US Dollar Index Futures was down 0.15% at 104.67.