Investing.com – Australia equities were lower at the close on Wednesday, as losses in the Utilities, Telecoms Services and Metals & Mining sectors propelled shares lower.
At the close in Sydney, the S&P/ASX 200 declined 0.75%.
The biggest gainers of the session on the S&P/ASX 200 were Flight Centre Ltd (AX:FLT), which rose 3.82% or 2.380 points to trade at 64.630 at the close. Blackmores Ltd (AX:BKL) added 2.00% or 2.86 points to end at 145.97 and A2 Milk Company Ltd (AX:A2M) was up 1.98% or 0.210 points to 10.820 in late trade.
Biggest losers included AGL Energy Ltd (AX:AGL), which lost 7.41% or 1.685 points to trade at 21.065 in late trade. Lynas Corporation Ltd (AX:LYC) declined 4.98% or 0.110 points to end at 2.100 and Altium Ltd (AX:ALU) shed 4.89% or 1.080 points to 21.000.
Declining stocks outnumbered rising ones by 669 to 535 and 360 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 4.18% to 13.098.
In commodities trading, Gold Futures for August delivery was down 0.34% or 4.30 to $1251.10 a troy ounce. Meanwhile, Crude oil for delivery in August fell 0.63% or 0.47 to hit $73.64 a barrel, while the September Brent oil contract fell 0.84% or 0.66 to trade at $78.20 a barrel.
AUD/USD was down 0.74% to 0.7404, while AUD/JPY fell 0.69% to 82.23.
The US Dollar Index Futures was up 0.14% at 93.98.