Australia stocks lower at close of trade; S&P/ASX 200 down 1.82%

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

At the close in Sydney, the S&P/ASX 200 declined 1.82%.

The best performers of the session on the S&P/ASX 200 were Appen Ltd (ASX:APX), which rose 7.95% or 0.06 points to trade at 0.81 at the close. Meanwhile, EML Payments Ltd (ASX:EML) added 4.02% or 0.04 points to end at 1.03 and Iress Ltd (ASX:IRE) was up 3.42% or 0.29 points to 8.78 in late trade.

The worst performers of the session were St Barbara Ltd (ASX:SBM), which fell 8.33% or 0.02 points to trade at 0.17 at the close. Champion Iron Ltd (ASX:CIA) declined 5.10% or 0.40 points to end at 7.44 and Regis Resources Ltd (ASX:RRL) was down 4.23% or 0.09 points to 1.92.

Falling stocks outnumbered advancing ones on the Sydney Stock Exchange by 747 to 428 and 344 ended unchanged.

The S&P/ASX 200 VIX, which measures the implied volatility of S&P/ASX 200 options, was up 15.34% to 13.09 a new 3-months high.

Gold Futures for April delivery was up 0.09% or 1.95 to $2,187.45 a troy ounce. Elsewhere in commodities trading, Crude oil for delivery in April fell 0.72% or 0.56 to hit $77.45 a barrel, while the May Brent oil contract fell 0.67% or 0.55 to trade at $81.53 a barrel.

AUD/USD was unchanged 0.22% to 0.66, while AUD/JPY fell 0.25% to 97.17.

The US Dollar Index Futures was down 0.01% at 102.32.