Investing.com – Australia equities were lower at the close on Thursday, as losses in the Telecoms Services, Healthcare and Industrials sectors propelled shares lower.
At the close in Sydney, the S&P/ASX 200 lost 0.02%.
The biggest gainers of the session on the S&P/ASX 200 were Sky Network Television Ltd. (AX:SKT), which rose 20.48% or 0.850 points to trade at 5.000 at the close. St Barbara Ltd (AX:SBM) added 7.65% or 0.235 points to end at 3.305 and Regis Resources Ltd (AX:RRL) was up 7.23% or 0.235 points to 3.485 in late trade.
Biggest losers included Amcor Ltd (AX:AMC), which lost 8.02% or 1.295 points to trade at 14.855 in late trade. Incitec Pivot Ltd (AX:IPL) declined 4.66% or 0.165 points to end at 3.375 and Spark New Zealand Ltd (AX:SPK) shed 2.75% or 0.090 points to 3.180.
Advancing stocks outnumbered falling ones by 602 to 444 and 326 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 0.86% to 16.321.
In commodities trading, Gold for August delivery was up 0.13% or 1.65 to $1263.95 a troy ounce. Meanwhile, Crude oil for delivery in July rose 0.66% or 0.34 to hit $51.57 a barrel, while the August Brent oil contract rose 0.48% or 0.25 to trade at $52.76 a barrel.
AUD/USD was down 0.35% to 0.7463, while AUD/JPY fell 0.61% to 79.63.
The US Dollar Index was down 0.05% at 93.54.