Investing.com – Australia stocks were lower after the close on Friday, as losses in the Energy, Gold and Materials sectors led shares lower.
At the close in Sydney, the S&P/ASX 200 declined 0.12%.
The best performers of the session on the S&P/ASX 200 were Mesoblast Ltd (ASX:MSB), which rose 11.31% or 0.370 points to trade at 3.640 at the close. Meanwhile, Mineral Resources Ltd (ASX:MIN) added 5.18% or 1.47 points to end at 29.87 and Sandfire Resources NL (ASX:SFR) was up 4.05% or 0.170 points to 4.370 in late trade.
The worst performers of the session were Oil Search Ltd (ASX:OSH), which fell 5.09% or 0.190 points to trade at 3.540 at the close. Washington H Soul Pattinson&Co Ltd (ASX:SOL) declined 5.00% or 1.46 points to end at 27.75 and EML Payments Ltd (ASX:EML) was down 4.72% or 0.18 points to 3.63.
Rising stocks outnumbered declining ones on the Sydney Stock Exchange by 678 to 571 and 372 ended unchanged.
Shares in Mineral Resources Ltd (ASX:MIN) rose to all time highs; rising 5.18% or 1.47 to 29.87.
The S&P/ASX 200 VIX, which measures the implied volatility of S&P/ASX 200 options, was up 9.54% to 16.773.
Gold Futures for December delivery was down 0.04% or 0.80 to $1860.70 a troy ounce. Elsewhere in commodities trading, Crude oil for delivery in January fell 0.21% or 0.09 to hit $41.81 a barrel, while the January Brent oil contract fell 0.07% or 0.03 to trade at $44.17 a barrel.
AUD/USD was down 0.03% to 0.7285, while AUD/JPY rose 0.11% to 75.67.
The US Dollar Index Futures was up 0.05% at 92.328.