Investing.com – Australia equities were lower at the close on Monday, as losses in the Healthcare, Consumer Discretionary and Consumer Staples sectors propelled shares lower.
At the close in Sydney, the S&P/ASX 200 lost 0.80%.
The biggest gainers of the session on the S&P/ASX 200 were Duet Group (AX:DUE), which rose 15.74% or 0.370 points to trade at 2.720 at the close. Alumina Ltd (AX:AWC) added 6.54% or 0.105 points to end at 1.710 and Japara Fpo (AX:JHC) was up 3.94% or 0.075 points to 1.980 in late trade.
Biggest losers included Galaxy Resources Ltd (AX:GXY), which lost 6.84% or 0.033 points to trade at 0.443 in late trade. Orocobre Ltd (AX:ORE) declined 5.57% or 0.250 points to end at 4.240 and Webjet Ltd (AX:WEB) shed 5.48% or 0.560 points to 9.660.
Declining stocks outnumbered rising ones by 657 to 353 and 317 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 6.42% to 13.356.
In commodities trading, Gold for February delivery was up 0.07% or 0.85 to $1178.65 a troy ounce. Meanwhile, Crude oil for delivery in January fell 0.74% or 0.38 to hit $51.30 a barrel, while the February Brent oil contract fell 0.70% or 0.38 to trade at $54.08 a barrel.
AUD/USD was down 0.13% to 0.7447, while AUD/JPY fell 0.11% to 84.55.
The US Dollar Index was up 0.67% at 101.43.