Investing.com – Australia equities were lower at the close on Friday, as losses in the Gold, Telecoms Services and Utilities sectors propelled shares lower.
At the close in Sydney, the S&P/ASX 200 declined 0.27%.
The biggest gainers of the session on the S&P/ASX 200 were Retail Food Group Ltd (AX:RFG), which rose 4.49% or 0.040 points to trade at 0.930 at the close. Seven West Media Ltd (AX:SWM) added 3.92% or 0.020 points to end at 0.530 and Iress Ltd (AX:IRE) was up 2.73% or 0.270 points to 10.150 in late trade.
Biggest losers included G8 Education Ltd (AX:GEM), which lost 6.22% or 0.155 points to trade at 2.335 in late trade. Evolution Mining Ltd (AX:EVN) declined 5.21% or 0.175 points to end at 3.185 and Independence Group NL (AX:IGO) shed 4.63% or 0.260 points to 5.350.
Declining stocks outnumbered rising ones by 643 to 522 and 413 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 1.94% to 11.007.
In commodities trading, Gold Futures for June delivery was down 0.28% or 3.80 to $1345.00 a troy ounce. Meanwhile, Crude oil for delivery in May fell 0.21% or 0.14 to hit $68.15 a barrel, while the June Brent oil contract fell 0.16% or 0.12 to trade at $73.66 a barrel.
AUD/USD was down 0.23% to 0.7711, while AUD/JPY unchanged 0.00% to 82.98.
The US Dollar Index Futures was up 0.08% at 89.71.