Investing.com – Australia equities were lower at the close on Monday, as losses in the Energy, Financials and Consumer Staples sectors propelled shares lower.
At the close in Sydney, the S&P/ASX 200 declined 0.32%.
The biggest gainers of the session on the S&P/ASX 200 were Mineral Resources Ltd (AX:MIN), which rose 5.36% or 0.330 points to trade at 6.490 at the close. Select Harvests Ltd (AX:SHV) added 4.07% or 0.180 points to end at 4.600 and Slater & Gordon Ltd (AX:SGH) was up 3.64% or 0.010 points to 0.285 in late trade.
Biggest losers included AWE Ltd (AX:AWE), which lost 6.76% or 0.050 points to trade at 0.690 in late trade. Whitehaven Coal Ltd (AX:WHC) declined 5.84% or 0.045 points to end at 0.725 and Beach Energy Ltd (AX:BPT) shed 5.44% or 0.040 points to 0.695.
Declining stocks outnumbered rising ones by 479 to 454 and 291 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 0.01% to 14.617 a new 6-month low.
In commodities trading, Gold for April delivery was down 0.84% or 10.50 to $1243.80 a troy ounce. Meanwhile, Crude oil for delivery in May fell 1.17% or 0.48 to hit $40.66 a barrel, while the May Brent oil contract fell 0.73% or 0.30 to trade at $40.90 a barrel.
AUD/USD was down 0.35% to 0.7581, while AUD/JPY fell 0.40% to 84.52.
The US Dollar Index was up 0.13% at 95.19.