Investing.com – Australia equities were lower at the close on Wednesday, as losses in the Utilities, Energy and Telecoms Services sectors propelled shares lower.
At the close in Sydney, the S&P/ASX 200 lost 0.25%.
The biggest gainers of the session on the S&P/ASX 200 were Computershare Ltd. (AX:CPU), which rose 8.83% or 0.790 points to trade at 9.740 at the close. Cochlear Ltd (AX:COH) added 6.46% or 8.080 points to end at 133.080 and Mesoblast Ltd (AX:MSB) was up 5.79% or 0.070 points to 1.280 in late trade.
Biggest losers included Monadelphous Group Ltd (AX:MND), which lost 7.43% or 0.860 points to trade at 10.720 in late trade. Whitehaven Coal Ltd (AX:WHC) declined 6.13% or 0.115 points to end at 1.760 and Fairfax Media Ltd (AX:FXJ) shed 4.27% or 0.043 points to 0.953.
Declining stocks outnumbered rising ones by 548 to 521 and 311 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 1.01% to 12.707 a new 52-week low.
In commodities trading, Gold for December delivery was up 0.81% or 10.85 to $1357.55 a troy ounce. Meanwhile, Crude oil for delivery in September fell 0.33% or 0.14 to hit $42.63 a barrel, while the October Brent oil contract fell 0.24% or 0.11 to trade at $44.87 a barrel.
AUD/USD was up 0.26% to 0.7692, while AUD/JPY fell 0.24% to 77.98.
The US Dollar Index was down 0.32% at 95.75.