Investing.com – Australia equities were lower at the close on Wednesday, as losses in the Energy, Healthcare and IT sectors propelled shares lower.
At the close in Sydney, the S&P/ASX 200 fell 0.09%.
The biggest gainers of the session on the S&P/ASX 200 were Vicinity Centres Re Ltd (AX:VCX), which rose 3.31% or 0.085 points to trade at 2.655 at the close. Mirvac Group (AX:MGR) added 3.14% or 0.070 points to end at 2.300 and GPT Group (AX:GPT) was up 2.69% or 0.130 points to 4.960 in late trade.
Biggest losers included Santos Ltd (AX:STO), which lost 8.54% or 0.550 points to trade at 5.890 in late trade. A2 Milk Company Ltd (AX:A2M) declined 6.59% or 0.650 points to end at 9.210 and Beach Energy Ltd (AX:BPT) shed 4.29% or 0.078 points to 1.728.
Declining stocks outnumbered rising ones by 613 to 564 and 422 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 1.45% to 13.621 a new 1-month high.
In commodities trading, Gold Futures for June delivery was down 0.18% or 2.30 to $1289.70 a troy ounce. Meanwhile, Crude oil for delivery in July fell 0.39% or 0.28 to hit $71.92 a barrel, while the July Brent oil contract fell 0.68% or 0.54 to trade at $79.03 a barrel.
AUD/USD was down 0.46% to 0.7541, while AUD/JPY fell 0.83% to 83.33.
The US Dollar Index Futures was up 0.11% at 93.61.