Investing.com – Australia equities were lower at the close on Thursday, as losses in the Financials, Metals & Mining and Resources sectors propelled shares lower.
At the close in Sydney, the S&P/ASX 200 fell 0.90%.
The biggest gainers of the session on the S&P/ASX 200 were ALS Ltd (AX:ALQ), which rose 25.93% or 1.050 points to trade at 5.100 at the close. Whitehaven Coal Ltd (AX:WHC) added 7.60% or 0.065 points to end at 0.920 and Select Harvests Ltd (AX:SHV) was up 4.37% or 0.310 points to 7.400 in late trade.
Biggest losers included Japara Fpo (AX:JHC), which lost 9.36% or 0.250 points to trade at 2.420 in late trade. Regis Healthcare Ltd (AX:REG) declined 8.42% or 0.405 points to end at 4.405 and Bendigo And Adelaide Bank Ltd (AX:BEN) shed 5.61% or 0.560 points to 9.430.
Declining stocks outnumbered rising ones by 542 to 454 and 296 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 4.96% to 18.228.
In commodities trading, Gold for August delivery was up 0.19% or 2.35 to $1217.05 a troy ounce. Meanwhile, Crude oil for delivery in July fell 0.27% or 0.13 to hit $48.88 a barrel, while the August Brent oil contract fell 0.02% or 0.01 to trade at $49.71 a barrel.
AUD/USD was down 0.25% to 0.7240, while AUD/JPY fell 0.63% to 79.00.
The US Dollar Index was down 0.14% at 95.29.