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 fell 0.81%.
The biggest gainers of the session on the S&P/ASX 200 were Mesoblast Ltd (ASX:MSB), which rose 4.98% or 0.06 points to trade at 1.16 at the close. NRW Holdings Ltd (ASX:NWH) added 3.46% or 0.11 points to end at 3.29 and Nuix Ltd (ASX:NXL) was up 2.47% or 0.08 points to 3.32 in late trade.
Biggest losers included Zip Co Ltd (ASX:ZIP), which lost 5.18% or 0.09 points to trade at 1.69 in late trade. Megaport Ltd (ASX:MP1) declined 5.00% or 0.58 points to end at 11.01 and St Barbara Ltd (ASX:SBM) shed 4.17% or 0.01 points to 0.23.
Declining stocks outnumbered rising ones by 692 to 394 and 448 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 2.01% to 11.71.
In commodities trading, Gold Futures for August delivery was down 1.46% or 35.90 to $2,420.50 a troy ounce. Meanwhile, Crude oil for delivery in September fell 0.70% or 0.57 to hit $80.73 a barrel, while the September Brent oil contract fell 0.49% or 0.42 to trade at $84.69 a barrel.
AUD/USD was unchanged 0.07% to 0.67, while AUD/JPY rose 0.17% to 105.72.
The US Dollar Index Futures was up 0.15% at 104.04.