Investing.com – Australia equities were lower at the close on Friday, as losses in the Energy, Resources and Metals & Mining sectors propelled shares lower.
At the close in Sydney, the S&P/ASX 200 lost 0.34%.
The biggest gainers of the session on the S&P/ASX 200 were News Corp B DRC (AX:NWS), which rose 2.73% or 0.500 points to trade at 18.820 at the close. Evolution Mining Ltd (AX:EVN) added 2.39% or 0.090 points to end at 3.860 and NIB Holdings (AX:NHF) was up 2.32% or 0.130 points to 5.730 in late trade.
Biggest losers included Beach Energy Ltd (AX:BPT), which lost 9.67% or 0.175 points to trade at 1.635 in late trade. Domain Holdings Australia Ltd (AX:DHG) declined 6.33% or 0.140 points to end at 2.070 and CYBG PLC (AX:CYB) shed 5.05% or 0.190 points to 3.570.
Declining stocks outnumbered rising ones by 609 to 485 and 365 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 0.29% to 12.902.
In commodities trading, Gold Futures for April delivery was down 0.06% or 0.85 to $1313.35 a troy ounce. Meanwhile, Crude oil for delivery in March fell 0.68% or 0.36 to hit $52.28 a barrel, while the April Brent oil contract fell 0.50% or 0.31 to trade at $61.32 a barrel.
AUD/USD was down 0.27% to 0.7080, while AUD/JPY fell 0.31% to 77.70.
The US Dollar Index Futures was up 0.07% at 96.360.