Investing.com – Australia equities were lower at the close on Wednesday, as losses in the Financials, IT and Energy sectors propelled shares lower.
At the close in Sydney, the S&P/ASX 200 fell 0.07%.
The biggest gainers of the session on the S&P/ASX 200 were ALS Ltd (AX:ALQ), which rose 11.21% or 0.835 points to trade at 8.285 at the close. Credit Corp Group Ltd (AX:CCP) added 6.24% or 1.285 points to end at 21.865 and G.U.D. Holdings Ltd (AX:GUD) was up 5.07% or 0.720 points to 14.920 in late trade.
Biggest losers included Janus Henderson Group PLC DRC (AX:JHG), which lost 7.04% or 3.075 points to trade at 40.575 in late trade. Beach Energy Ltd (AX:BPT) declined 3.14% or 0.060 points to end at 1.850 and Afterpay Touch Group Ltd (AX:APT) shed 2.40% or 0.340 points to 13.840.
Declining stocks outnumbered rising ones by 626 to 581 and 369 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 3.39% to 11.463 a new 1-month low.
In commodities trading, Gold Futures for August delivery was down 0.36% or 4.40 to $1219.30 a troy ounce. Meanwhile, Crude oil for delivery in September fell 0.42% or 0.29 to hit $68.47 a barrel, while the October Brent oil contract fell 0.19% or 0.14 to trade at $74.07 a barrel.
AUD/USD was down 0.27% to 0.7407, while AUD/JPY fell 0.13% to 82.94.
The US Dollar Index Futures was up 0.12% at 94.44.