Australia shares lower at close of trade; S&P/ASX 200 down 0.75%

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

At the close in Sydney, the S&P/ASX 200 lost 0.75%.

The biggest gainers of the session on the S&P/ASX 200 were James Hardie Industries PLC (ASX:JHX), which rose 6.21% or 3.12 points to trade at 53.36 at the close. Megaport Ltd (ASX:MP1) added 3.46% or 0.28 points to end at 8.38 and Iluka Resources Ltd (ASX:ILU) was up 3.15% or 0.17 points to 5.57 in late trade.

Biggest losers included Nuix Ltd (ASX:NXL), which lost 22.03% or 1.67 points to trade at 5.91 in late trade. Mineral Resources Ltd (ASX:MIN) declined 7.06% or 2.66 points to end at 35.00 and Appen Ltd (ASX:APX) shed 6.27% or 0.18 points to 2.69.

Declining stocks outnumbered rising ones by 671 to 384 and 389 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 1.61% to 11.02.

In commodities trading, Gold Futures for December delivery was up 0.20% or 5.10 to $2,611.40 a troy ounce. Meanwhile, Crude oil for delivery in December rose 0.25% or 0.17 to hit $68.29 a barrel, while the January Brent oil contract rose 0.26% or 0.19 to trade at $72.08 a barrel.

AUD/USD was unchanged 0.01% to 0.65, while AUD/JPY rose 0.14% to 101.15.

The US Dollar Index Futures was up 0.00% at 105.96.