Investing.com – Australia equities were lower at the close on Tuesday, as losses in the Metals & Mining, Materials and Gold sectors propelled shares lower.
At the close in Sydney, the S&P/ASX 200 declined 0.19%.
The biggest gainers of the session on the S&P/ASX 200 were Beach Energy Ltd (AX:BPT), which rose 3.25% or 0.020 points to trade at 0.635 at the close. Seven West Media Ltd (AX:SWM) added 2.69% or 0.030 points to end at 1.145 and JB Hi-Fi Ltd (AX:JBH) was up 2.47% or 0.600 points to 24.850 in late trade.
Biggest losers included Syrah Res F (AX:SYR), which lost 13.06% or 0.730 points to trade at 4.860 in late trade. Alumina Ltd (AX:AWC) declined 4.28% or 0.063 points to end at 1.397 and South32 Ltd (AX:S32) shed 4.19% or 0.083 points to 1.887.
Advancing stocks outnumbered falling ones by 540 to 529 and 342 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 3.14% to 14.893 a new 3-month low.
In commodities trading, Gold for August delivery was down 0.08% or 1.05 to $1328.25 a troy ounce. Meanwhile, Crude oil for delivery in September fell 0.22% or 0.10 to hit $45.84 a barrel, while the September Brent oil contract fell 0.19% or 0.09 to trade at $46.87 a barrel.
AUD/USD was down 0.79% to 0.7531, while AUD/JPY fell 0.88% to 79.88.
The US Dollar Index was up 0.03% at 96.59.