Investing.com – Australia equities were lower at the close on Thursday, as losses in the Real Estate Investment, Utilities and Industrials sectors propelled shares lower.
At the close in Sydney, the S&P/ASX 200 lost 0.30%.
The biggest gainers of the session on the S&P/ASX 200 were Zip Co Ltd (ASX:ZIP), which rose 5.67% or 0.08 points to trade at 1.49 at the close. Star Entertainment Group Ltd (ASX:SGR) added 4.30% or 0.02 points to end at 0.49 and Skycity Entertainment Group Ltd (ASX:SKC) was up 3.91% or 0.05 points to 1.33 in late trade.
Biggest losers included Cromwell Property Group (ASX:CMW), which lost 6.55% or 0.03 points to trade at 0.39 in late trade. Growthpoint Properties Australia (ASX:GOZ) declined 6.03% or 0.14 points to end at 2.18 and GPT Group (ASX:GPT) shed 5.87% or 0.25 points to 4.01.
Declining stocks outnumbered rising ones by 652 to 512 and 516 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 48.01% to 11.55.
In commodities trading, Gold Futures for August delivery was down 0.06% or 1.45 to $2,311.75 a troy ounce. Meanwhile, Crude oil for delivery in August fell 0.14% or 0.11 to hit $80.79 a barrel, while the September Brent oil contract fell 0.09% or 0.08 to trade at $84.39 a barrel.
AUD/USD was unchanged 0.39% to 0.67, while AUD/JPY rose 0.06% to 106.97.
The US Dollar Index Futures was down 0.15% at 105.56.