Investing.com – Australia equities were lower at the close on Thursday, as losses in the Industrials, Consumer Staples and IT sectors propelled shares lower.
At the close in Sydney, the S&P/ASX 200 declined 0.24%.
The biggest gainers of the session on the S&P/ASX 200 were St Barbara Ltd (ASX:SBM), which rose 4.17% or 0.01 points to trade at 0.25 at the close. Pro Medicus Ltd (ASX:PME) added 3.86% or 10.00 points to end at 269.38 and Northern Star Resources Ltd (ASX:NST) was up 2.93% or 0.47 points to 16.53 in late trade.
Biggest losers included Westgold Resources Ltd (ASX:WGX), which lost 13.65% or 0.40 points to trade at 2.53 in late trade. Appen Ltd (ASX:APX) declined 7.26% or 0.22 points to end at 2.81 and Mesoblast Ltd (ASX:MSB) shed 5.07% or 0.15 points to 2.81.
Declining stocks outnumbered rising ones by 606 to 444 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 0.36% to 10.71.
In commodities trading, Gold Futures for February delivery was up 0.17% or 4.45 to $2,676.85 a troy ounce. Meanwhile, Crude oil for delivery in February fell 0.20% or 0.15 to hit $73.17 a barrel, while the March Brent oil contract fell 0.18% or 0.14 to trade at $76.02 a barrel.
AUD/USD was unchanged 0.05% to 0.62, while AUD/JPY fell 0.37% to 98.05.
The US Dollar Index Futures was down 0.01% at 108.91.