Investing.com – Australia equities were lower at the close on Wednesday, as losses in the Metals & Mining, Resources and Energy sectors propelled shares lower.
At the close in Sydney, the S&P/ASX 200 declined 0.58%.
The biggest gainers of the session on the S&P/ASX 200 were Duluxgroup Ltd (AX:DLX), which rose 6.10% or 0.460 points to trade at 8.000 at the close. Aconex Ltd (AX:ACX) added 5.11% or 0.240 points to end at 4.940 and St Barbara Ltd (AX:SBM) was up 3.64% or 0.110 points to 3.130 in late trade.
Biggest losers included Australian Agricultural Company Ltd (AX:AAC), which lost 7.40% or 0.115 points to trade at 1.440 in late trade. Monadelphous Group Ltd (AX:MND) declined 5.56% or 1.020 points to end at 17.320 and Western Areas Ltd (AX:WSA) shed 5.49% or 0.180 points to 3.100.
Declining stocks outnumbered rising ones by 773 to 467 and 345 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 1.60% to 13.196 a new 1-month high.
In commodities trading, Gold Futures for December delivery was down 0.15% or 1.98 to $1280.92 a troy ounce. Meanwhile, Crude oil for delivery in December fell 1.11% or 0.62 to hit $55.08 a barrel, while the January Brent oil contract fell 1.27% or 0.79 to trade at $61.42 a barrel.
AUD/USD was down 0.60% to 0.7585, while AUD/JPY fell 0.77% to 85.91.
The US Dollar Index Futures was up 0.04% at 93.76.