Investing.com – Australia equities were lower at the close on Monday, as losses in the Consumer Staples, Metals & Mining and IT sectors propelled shares lower.
At the close in Sydney, the S&P/ASX 200 fell 0.72%.
The biggest gainers of the session on the S&P/ASX 200 were Sirtex Medical Ltd (ASX:SRX), which rose 14.39% or 3.840 points to trade at 30.520 at the close. UGL Ltd (ASX:UGL) added 10.34% or 0.240 points to end at 2.560 and STW Communications Group Ltd (ASX:SGN) was up 4.39% or 0.025 points to 0.595 in late trade.
Biggest losers included Seven Group Holdings Ltd (ASX:SVW), which lost 6.16% or 0.470 points to trade at 7.160 in late trade. Drillsearch Energy Ltd (ASX:DLS) declined 6.10% or 0.075 points to end at 1.155 and Technology One Ltd (ASX:TNE) shed 5.03% or 0.200 points to 3.780.
Declining stocks outnumbered rising ones by 589 to 409 and 248 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 5.13% to 16.096.
In commodities trading, Gold for August delivery was down 0.11% or 1.30 to $1188.50 a troy ounce. Meanwhile, Crude oil for delivery in July fell 0.75% or 0.45 to hit $59.85 a barrel, while the July Brent oil contract fell 0.65% or 0.42 to trade at $65.14 a barrel.
AUD/USD was up 0.20% to 0.7664, while AUD/JPY rose 0.18% to 95.08.
The US Dollar Index was up 0.32% at 97.25.