Investing.com – Australia equities were lower at the close on Friday, as losses in the Gold, Metals & Mining and Materials sectors propelled shares lower.
At the close in Sydney, the S&P/ASX 200 lost 0.41%.
The biggest gainers of the session on the S&P/ASX 200 were Mesoblast Ltd (ASX:MSB), which rose 13.93% or 0.22 points to trade at 1.84 at the close. Appen Ltd (ASX:APX) added 11.26% or 0.26 points to end at 2.57 and Iress Ltd (ASX:IRE) was up 8.19% or 0.71 points to 9.38 in late trade.
Biggest losers included St Barbara Ltd (ASX:SBM), which lost 7.46% or 0.03 points to trade at 0.31 in late trade. Regis Resources Ltd (ASX:RRL) declined 4.18% or 0.12 points to end at 2.75 and Ramelius Resources Ltd (ASX:RMS) shed 4.17% or 0.10 points to 2.30.
Declining stocks outnumbered rising ones by 636 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 2.55% to 9.97 a new 1-month low.
In commodities trading, Gold Futures for February delivery was down 0.07% or 1.81 to $2,707.59 a troy ounce. Meanwhile, Crude oil for delivery in January rose 0.01% or 0.01 to hit $70.03 a barrel, while the February Brent oil contract fell 0.03% or 0.02 to trade at $73.39 a barrel.
AUD/USD was unchanged 0.07% to 0.64, while AUD/JPY rose 0.11% to 97.33.
The US Dollar Index Futures was up 0.15% at 106.80.