Investing.com – Australia equities were lower at the close on Thursday, as losses in the Gold, Telecoms Services and Metals & Mining sectors propelled shares lower.
At the close in Sydney, the S&P/ASX 200 fell 0.21%.
The biggest gainers of the session on the S&P/ASX 200 were Skilled Group Ltd (ASX:SKE), which rose 8.30% or 0.115 points to trade at 1.500 at the close. Cardno Ltd (ASX:CDD) added 5.17% or 0.150 points to end at 3.050 and Spark New Zealand Ltd (ASX:SPK) was up 4.86% or 0.120 points to 2.590 in late trade.
Biggest losers included ALS Ltd (ASX:ALQ), which lost 6.07% or 0.390 points to trade at 6.040 in late trade. Newcrest Mining Ltd (ASX:NCM) declined 5.38% or 0.790 points to end at 13.900 and Bluescope Steel Ltd (ASX:BSL) shed 3.67% or 0.130 points to 3.410.
Declining stocks outnumbered rising ones by 506 to 503 and 187 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 down 1.25% to 15.321.
In commodities trading, Gold for August delivery was up 0.24% or 2.80 to $1189.30 a troy ounce. Meanwhile, Crude oil for delivery in July rose 0.52% or 0.30 to hit $57.81 a barrel, while the July Brent oil contract rose 0.93% or 0.57 to trade at $62.63 a barrel.
AUD/USD was down 0.50% to 0.7696, while AUD/JPY fell 0.43% to 95.19.
The US Dollar Index was down 0.20% at 97.14.