Australia stocks lower at close of trade; S&P/ASX 200 down 0.05%

Investing.com – Australia stocks were lower after the close on Thursday, as losses in the Utilities, Gold and Metals&Mining sectors led shares lower.

At the close in Sydney, the S&P/ASX 200 declined 0.05%.

The best performers of the session on the S&P/ASX 200 were Graincorp Ltd (ASX:GNC), which rose 10.00% or 0.71 points to trade at 7.81 at the close. Meanwhile, Pointsbet Holdings Ltd (ASX:PBH) added 6.67% or 0.12 points to end at 1.92 and Omni Bridgeway Ltd (ASX:OBL) was up 5.34% or 0.14 points to 2.76 in late trade.

The worst performers of the session were Silver Lake Resources Ltd (ASX:SLR), which fell 5.78% or 0.07 points to trade at 1.06 at the close. EML Payments Ltd (ASX:EML) declined 4.93% or 0.04 points to end at 0.68 and Appen Ltd (ASX:APX) was down 3.49% or 0.08 points to 2.21.

Rising stocks outnumbered declining ones on the Sydney Stock Exchange by 626 to 610 and 433 ended unchanged.

Shares in Appen Ltd (ASX:APX) fell to 5-year lows; falling 3.49% or 0.08 to 2.21.

The S&P/ASX 200 VIX, which measures the implied volatility of S&P/ASX 200 options, was down 4.37% to 12.09.

Gold Futures for June delivery was down 0.27% or 5.60 to $2,031.50 a troy ounce. Elsewhere in commodities trading, Crude oil for delivery in June rose 0.65% or 0.47 to hit $73.03 a barrel, while the July Brent oil contract rose 0.63% or 0.48 to trade at $76.89 a barrel.

AUD/USD was unchanged 0.60% to 0.67, while AUD/JPY fell 0.50% to 90.61.

The US Dollar Index Futures was up 0.36% at 101.64.