Australia shares lower at close of trade; S&P/ASX 200 down 0.83%

Investing.com – Australia equities were lower at the close on Friday, as losses in the IT , Real Estate Investment and Consumer Staples sectors propelled shares lower.

At the close in Sydney, the S&P/ASX 200 lost 0.83%.

The biggest gainers of the session on the S&P/ASX 200 were Afterpay Touch Group Ltd (AX: APT ), which rose 3.83% or 0.900 points to trade at 24.400 at the close. Domain Holdings Australia Ltd (AX: DHG ) added 3.74% or 0.110 points to end at 3.050 and St Barbara Ltd (AX: SBM ) was up 2.17% or 0.070 points to 3.290 in late trade.

Biggest losers included Bravura Solutions Ltd (AX: BVS ), which lost 4.81% or 0.260 points to trade at 5.150 in late trade. Appen Ltd (AX: APX ) declined 4.17% or 0.980 points to end at 22.540 and Altium Ltd (AX: ALU ) shed 3.84% or 1.250 points to 31.320.

Declining stocks outnumbered rising ones by 624 to 489 and 348 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 2.16% to 11.780.

In commodities trading, Gold Futures for June delivery was down 0.11% or 1.45 to $1292.85 a troy ounce. Meanwhile, Crude oil for delivery in May rose 0.03% or 0.02 to hit $62.12 a barrel, while the June Brent oil contract fell 0.20% or 0.14 to trade at $69.26 a barrel.

AUD/USD was up 0.22% to 0.7127, while AUD/JPY rose 0.25% to 79.59.

The US Dollar Index Futures was down 0.06% at 96.863.