Investing.com – Australia equities were lower at the close on Thursday, as losses in the Gold, Telecoms Services and Financials sectors propelled shares lower.
At the close in Sydney, the S&P/ASX 200 lost 0.72%.
The biggest gainers of the session on the S&P/ASX 200 were Mesoblast Ltd (AX:MSB), which rose 13.83% or 0.175 points to trade at 1.440 at the close. Automotive Group Holdings Ltd (AX:AHG) added 7.54% or 0.325 points to end at 4.635 and Magellan Financial Group Ltd (AX:MFG) was up 6.28% or 1.520 points to 25.730 in late trade.
Biggest losers included St Barbara Ltd (AX:SBM), which lost 6.19% or 0.200 points to trade at 3.030 in late trade. Independence Group NL (AX:IGO) declined 4.48% or 0.190 points to end at 4.050 and AMP Ltd (AX:AMP) shed 4.09% or 0.240 points to 5.630.
Declining stocks outnumbered rising ones by 525 to 509 and 351 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 2.74% to 13.053.
In commodities trading, Gold for December delivery was down 0.23% or 3.05 to $1348.85 a troy ounce. Meanwhile, Crude oil for delivery in September fell 0.17% or 0.07 to hit $41.64 a barrel, while the October Brent oil contract fell 0.16% or 0.07 to trade at $43.98 a barrel.
AUD/USD was down 0.03% to 0.7703, while AUD/JPY rose 0.15% to 78.17.
The US Dollar Index was up 0.14% at 95.72.