Investing.com – Australia equities were lower at the close on Wednesday, as losses in the Gold, Real Estate Investment and Industrials sectors propelled shares lower.
At the close in Sydney, the S&P/ASX 200 fell 0.64%.
The biggest gainers of the session on the S&P/ASX 200 were Magellan Financial Group Ltd (AX:MFG), which rose 4.69% or 1.240 points to trade at 27.700 at the close. Beach Energy Ltd (AX:BPT) added 4.44% or 0.058 points to end at 1.353 and Platinum Asset Management Ltd (AX:PTM) was up 4.42% or 0.350 points to 8.260 in late trade.
Biggest losers included Macquarie Atlas Roads Group (AX:MQA), which lost 5.22% or 0.325 points to trade at 5.905 in late trade. Syrah Resources Ltd (AX:SYR) declined 5.14% or 0.245 points to end at 4.525 and Pact Group Holdings Ltd (AX:PGH) shed 4.89% or 0.280 points to 5.450.
Declining stocks outnumbered rising ones by 743 to 524 and 354 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 14.37% to 10.827.
In commodities trading, Gold Futures for February delivery was down 0.16% or 2.10 to $1311.60 a troy ounce. Meanwhile, Crude oil for delivery in February rose 0.81% or 0.51 to hit $63.47 a barrel, while the March Brent oil contract rose 0.51% or 0.35 to trade at $69.17 a barrel.
AUD/USD was unchanged 0.00% to 0.7824, while AUD/JPY fell 0.35% to 87.83.
The US Dollar Index Futures was down 0.05% at 92.18.