Australia stocks lower at close of trade; S&P/ASX 200 down 0.56%

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

At the close in Sydney, the S&P/ASX 200 fell 0.56%.

The best performers of the session on the S&P/ASX 200 were EML Payments Ltd (ASX:EML), which rose 10.18% or 0.12 points to trade at 1.25 at the close. Meanwhile, Zip Co Ltd (ASX:ZIP) added 3.21% or 0.04 points to end at 1.28 and St Barbara Ltd (ASX:SBM) was up 3.03% or 0.01 points to 0.17 in late trade.

The worst performers of the session were Westgold Resources Ltd (ASX:WGX), which fell 6.80% or 0.17 points to trade at 2.33 at the close. Pilbara Minerals Ltd (ASX:PLS) declined 5.88% or 0.25 points to end at 3.92 and Tabcorp Holdings Ltd (ASX:TAH) was down 5.56% or 0.04 points to 0.72.

Falling stocks outnumbered advancing ones on the Sydney Stock Exchange by 704 to 455 and 362 ended unchanged.

The S&P/ASX 200 VIX, which measures the implied volatility of S&P/ASX 200 options, was up 3.11% to 11.60.

Gold Futures for April delivery was up 0.04% or 0.90 to $2,168.40 a troy ounce. Elsewhere in commodities trading, Crude oil for delivery in April fell 0.21% or 0.17 to hit $81.09 a barrel, while the May Brent oil contract fell 0.23% or 0.20 to trade at $85.22 a barrel.

AUD/USD was unchanged 0.19% to 0.66, while AUD/JPY fell 0.16% to 97.44.

The US Dollar Index Futures was up 0.10% at 103.09.