Investing.com – Australia equities were lower at the close on Thursday, as losses in the Real Estate Investment, Utilities and IT sectors propelled shares lower.
At the close in Sydney, the S&P/ASX 200 fell 0.14%.
The biggest gainers of the session on the S&P/ASX 200 were Downer Edi Ltd (AX:DOW), which rose 13.12% or 0.820 points to trade at 7.070 at the close. Western Areas Ltd (AX:WSA) added 8.87% or 0.220 points to end at 2.700 and Resolute Mining Ltd (AX:RSG) was up 5.46% or 0.080 points to 1.545 in late trade.
Biggest losers included Tabcorp Holdings Ltd (AX:TAH), which lost 5.47% or 0.260 points to trade at 4.490 in late trade. Asaleo Care (AX:AHY) declined 5.30% or 0.080 points to end at 1.430 and Infigen Energy (AX:IFN) shed 3.62% or 0.038 points to 0.998.
Declining stocks outnumbered rising ones by 568 to 506 and 345 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 1.87% to 13.488.
In commodities trading, Gold Futures for April delivery was up 0.74% or 8.95 to $1217.25 a troy ounce. Meanwhile, Crude oil for delivery in March fell 0.54% or 0.29 to hit $53.59 a barrel, while the April Brent oil contract fell 0.42% or 0.24 to trade at $56.56 a barrel.
AUD/USD was up 0.67% to 0.7640, while AUD/JPY rose 0.26% to 86.13.
The US Dollar Index Futures was down 0.21% at 99.48.