Investing.com – Australia equities were lower at the close on Friday, as losses in the Metals & Mining, Resources and Gold sectors propelled shares lower.
At the close in Sydney, the S&P/ASX 200 declined 0.74%.
The biggest gainers of the session on the S&P/ASX 200 were APN News & Media Ltd (AX:APN), which rose 12.81% or 0.078 points to trade at 0.682 at the close. Aristocrat Leisure Ltd (AX:ALL) added 6.82% or 0.790 points to end at 12.380 and Mineral Resources Ltd (AX:MIN) was up 6.24% or 0.470 points to 8.000 in late trade.
Biggest losers included Iluka Resources Ltd (AX:ILU), which lost 5.65% or 0.350 points to trade at 5.840 in late trade. Liquefied Natural Gas Ltd (AX:LNG) declined 4.87% or 0.028 points to end at 0.537 and Mesoblast Ltd (AX:MSB) shed 4.02% or 0.075 points to 1.790.
Declining stocks outnumbered rising ones by 533 to 486 and 376 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 2.85% to 18.278.
In commodities trading, Gold for June delivery was up 0.43% or 5.45 to $1276.65 a troy ounce. Meanwhile, Crude oil for delivery in June fell 0.77% or 0.36 to hit $46.34 a barrel, while the July Brent oil contract fell 0.56% or 0.27 to trade at $47.81 a barrel.
AUD/USD was down 0.35% to 0.7299, while AUD/JPY fell 0.60% to 79.38.
The US Dollar Index was up 0.02% at 94.13.