Investing.com – Australia equities were lower at the close on Monday, as losses in the Consumer Discretionary, Utilities and Healthcare sectors propelled shares lower.
At the close in Sydney, the S&P/ASX 200 lost 0.53%.
The biggest gainers of the session on the S&P/ASX 200 were Bega Cheese Ltd (AX:BGA), which rose 4.30% or 0.280 points to trade at 6.790 at the close. Blackmores Ltd (AX:BKL) added 3.82% or 3.66 points to end at 99.50 and Beach Energy Ltd (AX:BPT) was up 3.04% or 0.018 points to 0.593 in late trade.
Biggest losers included Fairfax Media Ltd (AX:FXJ), which lost 10.45% or 0.115 points to trade at 0.985 in late trade. Aveo Group (AX:AOG) declined 5.58% or 0.155 points to end at 2.625 and Vocus Group Ltd (AX:VOC) shed 4.15% or 0.140 points to 3.230.
Declining stocks outnumbered rising ones by 592 to 524 and 334 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 3.67% to 13.881.
In commodities trading, Gold Futures for August delivery was down 0.39% or 4.81 to $1237.49 a troy ounce. Meanwhile, Crude oil for delivery in August rose 0.35% or 0.16 to hit $46.20 a barrel, while the September Brent oil contract rose 0.21% or 0.10 to trade at $48.87 a barrel.
AUD/USD was down 0.20% to 0.7675, while AUD/JPY fell 0.09% to 86.34.
The US Dollar Index Futures was up 0.16% at 95.54.