Investing.com – Australia equities were lower at the close on Friday, as losses in the Real Estate Investment, Gold and Consumer Discretionary sectors propelled shares lower.
At the close in Sydney, the S&P/ASX 200 declined 1.26%.
The biggest gainers of the session on the S&P/ASX 200 were Worleyparsons Ltd (ASX:WOR), which rose 9.13% or 0.920 points to trade at 11.000 at the close. Sundance Energy Australia Ltd (ASX:SEA) added 5.13% or 0.030 points to end at 0.615 and Karoon Gas Australia Ltd (ASX:KAR) was up 4.56% or 0.120 points to 2.750 in late trade.
Biggest losers included Arrium Ltd (ASX:ARI), which lost 5.71% or 0.010 points to trade at 0.165 in late trade. Ansell Ltd (ASX:ANN) declined 5.21% or 1.540 points to end at 28.040 and Fortescue Metals Group Ltd (ASX:FMG) shed 5.12% or 0.100 points to 1.855.
Declining stocks outnumbered rising ones by 589 to 388 and 182 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 8.81% to 14.717.
In commodities trading, Gold for June delivery was up 0.14% or 1.70 to $1199.70 a troy ounce. Meanwhile, Crude oil for delivery in May fell 0.93% or 0.53 to hit $56.18 a barrel, while the June Brent oil contract fell 0.60% or 0.39 to trade at $63.46 a barrel.
AUD/USD was down 0.16% to 0.7790, while AUD/JPY fell 0.20% to 92.70.
The US Dollar Index was down 0.03% at 97.85.