Investing.com – Australia equities were lower at the close on Thursday, as losses in the IT, Gold and Consumer Discretionary sectors propelled shares lower.
At the close in Sydney, the S&P/ASX 200 declined 1.29%.
The biggest gainers of the session on the S&P/ASX 200 were Qantas Airways Ltd (ASX:QAN), which rose 1.69% or 0.10 points to trade at 6.02 at the close. GPT Group (ASX:GPT) added 1.63% or 0.07 points to end at 4.36 and Bendigo And Adelaide Bank Ltd (ASX:BEN) was up 1.30% or 0.16 points to 12.46 in late trade.
Biggest losers included Regis Resources Ltd (ASX:RRL), which lost 9.29% or 0.18 points to trade at 1.73 in late trade. Mesoblast Ltd (ASX:MSB) declined 8.37% or 0.11 points to end at 1.15 and Resolute Mining Ltd (ASX:RSG) shed 6.15% or 0.04 points to 0.61.
Declining stocks outnumbered rising ones by 793 to 320 and 406 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 6.90% to 12.75 a new 3-month high.
In commodities trading, Gold Futures for August delivery was down 1.76% or 42.60 to $2,373.10 a troy ounce. Meanwhile, Crude oil for delivery in September fell 0.79% or 0.61 to hit $76.98 a barrel, while the September Brent oil contract fell 0.72% or 0.59 to trade at $81.12 a barrel.
AUD/USD was unchanged 0.53% to 0.65, while AUD/JPY fell 1.23% to 100.02.
The US Dollar Index Futures was down 0.08% at 104.04.