Investing.com – Australia equities were lower at the close on Friday, as losses in the Energy, Consumer Staples and IT sectors propelled shares lower.
At the close in Sydney, the S&P/ASX 200 lost 0.55%.
The biggest gainers of the session on the S&P/ASX 200 were Ansell Ltd (ASX:ANN), which rose 3.48% or 0.900 points to trade at 26.730 at the close. Orora Ltd (ASX:ORA) added 3.15% or 0.10 points to end at 3.27 and Aristocrat Leisure Ltd (ASX:ALL) was up 2.53% or 0.720 points to 29.170 in late trade.
Biggest losers included Galaxy Resources Ltd (ASX:GXY), which lost 6.55% or 0.110 points to trade at 1.570 in late trade. Pilbara Minerals Ltd (ASX:PLS) declined 5.66% or 0.045 points to end at 0.750 and Beach Energy Ltd (ASX:BPT) shed 5.15% or 0.105 points to 1.935.
Declining stocks outnumbered rising ones by 690 to 484 and 388 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 1.25% to 13.501.
In commodities trading, Gold Futures for June delivery was down 0.16% or 2.05 to $1283.35 a troy ounce. Meanwhile, Crude oil for delivery in July rose 1.11% or 0.64 to hit $58.55 a barrel, while the July Brent oil contract rose 1.02% or 0.69 to trade at $68.45 a barrel.
AUD/USD was down 0.04% to 0.6896, while AUD/JPY fell 0.09% to 75.55.
The US Dollar Index Futures was down 0.14% at 97.588.