Investing.com – Australia equities were lower at the close on Friday, as losses in the Energy, Resources and Metals & Mining sectors propelled shares lower.
At the close in Sydney, the S&P/ASX 200 lost 0.69%.
The biggest gainers of the session on the S&P/ASX 200 were Sigma Pharmaceuticals Ltd (AX:SIG), which rose 5.92% or 0.045 points to trade at 0.805 at the close. Galaxy Resources Ltd (AX:GXYDA) added 3.33% or 0.080 points to end at 2.480 and JB Hi-Fi Ltd (AX:JBH) was up 2.99% or 0.670 points to 23.060 in late trade.
Biggest losers included Australian Pharma Industries Ltd (AX:API), which lost 7.12% or 0.140 points to trade at 1.825 in late trade. Flexigroup Ltd (AX:FXL) declined 7.06% or 0.125 points to end at 1.645 and Ansell Ltd (AX:ANN) shed 6.91% or 1.740 points to 23.440.
Declining stocks outnumbered rising ones by 611 to 445 and 402 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 3.41% to 12.250.
In commodities trading, Gold Futures for June delivery was up 0.15% or 1.83 to $1258.23 a troy ounce. Meanwhile, Crude oil for delivery in July fell 0.67% or 0.33 to hit $48.57 a barrel, while the July Brent oil contract fell 0.51% or 0.26 to trade at $51.20 a barrel.
AUD/USD was down 0.27% to 0.7435, while AUD/JPY fell 0.62% to 82.84.
The US Dollar Index Futures was up 0.10% at 97.24.