Investing.com – Australia stocks were lower after the close on Thursday, as losses in the Gold, Telecoms Services and Metals & Mining sectors led shares lower.
At the close in Australia, the S&P/ASX 200 lost 0.21%.
The best performers of the session on the S&P/ASX 200 were Skilled Group Ltd (ASX:SKE), which rose 8.30% or 0.115 points to trade at 1.500 at the close. Meanwhile, Cardno Ltd (ASX:CDD) added 5.17% or 0.150 points to end at 3.050 and Spark New Zealand Ltd (ASX:SPK) was up 4.86% or 0.120 points to 2.590 in late trade.
The worst performers of the session were ALS Ltd (ASX:ALQ), which fell 6.07% or 0.390 points to trade at 6.040 at the close. Newcrest Mining Ltd (ASX:NCM) declined 5.38% or 0.790 points to end at 13.900 and Bluescope Steel Ltd (ASX:BSL) was down 3.67% or 0.130 points to 3.410.
Falling stocks outnumbered advancing ones on the Australia Stock Exchange by 506 to 503 and 187 ended unchanged.
The S&P/ASX 200 VIX, which measures the implied volatility of S&P/ASX 200 options, was down 1.25% to 15.321.
Gold for August delivery was up 0.24% or 2.90 to $1189.40 a troy ounce. Elsewhere in commodities trading, Crude oil for delivery in July rose 0.51% or 0.29 to hit $57.80 a barrel, while the July Brent oil contract rose 0.91% or 0.56 to trade at $62.62 a barrel.
AUD/USD was down 0.51% to 0.7694, while AUD/JPY fell 0.43% to 95.19.
The US Dollar Index was down 0.20% at 97.14.