Australia shares lower at close of trade; S&P/ASX 200 down 1.88%

Investing.com – Australia equities were lower at the close on Wednesday, as losses in the Gold, Metals&Mining and Resources sectors propelled shares lower.

At the close in Sydney, the S&P/ASX 200 declined 1.88%.

The biggest gainers of the session on the S&P/ASX 200 were Orora Ltd (ASX:ORA), which rose 8.40% or 0.21 points to trade at 2.71 at the close. Appen Ltd (ASX:APX) added 5.79% or 0.06 points to end at 1.00 and Nanosonics Ltd (ASX:NAN) was up 3.60% or 0.12 points to 3.45 in late trade.

Biggest losers included Fortescue Metals Group Ltd (ASX:FMG), which lost 8.36% or 1.48 points to trade at 16.22 in late trade. St Barbara Ltd (ASX:SBM) declined 8.00% or 0.02 points to end at 0.23 and Gold Road Resources Ltd (ASX:GOR) shed 6.76% or 0.12 points to 1.59.

Declining stocks outnumbered rising ones by 873 to 262 and 384 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 22.89% to 13.61.

In commodities trading, Gold Futures for December delivery was down 0.11% or 2.75 to $2,520.25 a troy ounce. Meanwhile, Crude oil for delivery in October fell 0.45% or 0.32 to hit $70.02 a barrel, while the November Brent oil contract fell 0.37% or 0.27 to trade at $73.48 a barrel.

AUD/USD was unchanged 0.05% to 0.67, while AUD/JPY fell 0.23% to 97.42.

The US Dollar Index Futures was down 0.12% at 101.65.