Investing.com – Australia stocks were lower after the close on Wednesday, as losses in the Gold, Energy and IT sectors led shares lower.
At the close in Sydney, the S&P/ASX 200 lost 0.30%.
The best performers of the session on the S&P/ASX 200 were News Corp B DRC (ASX:NWS), which rose 6.25% or 1.76 points to trade at 29.93 at the close. Meanwhile, Monadelphous Group Ltd (ASX:MND) added 5.38% or 0.71 points to end at 13.91 and IPH Ltd (ASX:IPH) was up 4.16% or 0.34 points to 8.52 in late trade.
The worst performers of the session were St Barbara Ltd (ASX:SBM), which fell 21.35% or 0.19 points to trade at 0.70 at the close. Zip Co Ltd (ASX:ZIP) declined 6.38% or 0.05 points to end at 0.66 and Nuix Ltd (ASX:NXL) was down 5.91% or 0.06 points to 0.88.
Falling stocks outnumbered advancing ones on the Sydney Stock Exchange by 710 to 572 and 390 ended unchanged.
The S&P/ASX 200 VIX, which measures the implied volatility of S&P/ASX 200 options, was down 0.27% to 12.06.
Gold Futures for February delivery was down 0.31% or 6.00 to $1,929.40 a troy ounce. Elsewhere in commodities trading, Crude oil for delivery in March rose 0.10% or 0.08 to hit $80.21 a barrel, while the March Brent oil contract rose 0.23% or 0.20 to trade at $86.33 a barrel.
AUD/USD was up 0.84% to 0.71, while AUD/JPY rose 1.01% to 92.64.
The US Dollar Index Futures was up 0.01% at 101.69.