Australia stocks lower at close of trade; S&P/ASX 200 down 0.41%

Investing.com – Australia stocks were lower after the close on Friday, as losses in the Gold, Metals & Mining and Materials sectors led shares lower.

At the close in Sydney, the S&P/ASX 200 fell 0.41%.

The best performers of the session on the S&P/ASX 200 were Mesoblast Ltd (ASX:MSB), which rose 13.93% or 0.22 points to trade at 1.84 at the close. Meanwhile, Appen Ltd (ASX:APX) added 11.26% or 0.26 points to end at 2.57 and Iress Ltd (ASX:IRE) was up 8.19% or 0.71 points to 9.38 in late trade.

The worst performers of the session were St Barbara Ltd (ASX:SBM), which fell 7.46% or 0.03 points to trade at 0.31 at the close. Regis Resources Ltd (ASX:RRL) declined 4.18% or 0.12 points to end at 2.75 and Ramelius Resources Ltd (ASX:RMS) was down 4.17% or 0.10 points to 2.30.

Falling stocks outnumbered advancing ones on the Sydney Stock Exchange by 618 to 446 and 400 ended unchanged.

The S&P/ASX 200 VIX, which measures the implied volatility of S&P/ASX 200 options, was down 2.55% to 9.97 a new 1-month low.

Gold Futures for February delivery was down 0.04% or 1.10 to $2,708.30 a troy ounce. Elsewhere in commodities trading, Crude oil for delivery in January rose 0.03% or 0.02 to hit $70.04 a barrel, while the February Brent oil contract fell 0.04% or 0.03 to trade at $73.38 a barrel.

AUD/USD was unchanged 0.06% to 0.64, while AUD/JPY rose 0.13% to 97.35.

The US Dollar Index Futures was up 0.14% at 106.79.