Australia shares lower at close of trade; S&P/ASX 200 down 0.02%

Investing.com – Australia equities were lower at the close on Monday, as losses in the Gold , Metals & Mining and Materials sectors propelled shares lower.

At the close in Sydney, the S&P/ASX 200 fell 0.02%.

The biggest gainers of the session on the S&P/ASX 200 were Liquefied Natural Gas Ltd (AX: LNG ), which rose 6.48% or 0.035 points to trade at 0.575 at the close. Spotless Fp (AX: SPO ) added 6.22% or 0.068 points to end at 1.153 and Select Harvests Ltd (AX: SHV ) was up 4.87% or 0.310 points to 6.680 in late trade.

Biggest losers included ALS Ltd (AX: ALQ ), which lost 9.13% or 0.410 points to trade at 4.080 in late trade. Northern Star Resources Ltd (AX: NST ) declined 5.72% or 0.255 points to end at 4.205 and Bellamys Australia Ltd (AX: BAL ) shed 4.26% or 0.490 points to 11.000.

Advancing stocks outnumbered falling ones by 584 to 454 and 302 ended unchanged on the Sydney Stock Exchange.

The S&P/ASX 200 VIX , which measures the implied volatility of S&P/ASX 200 options, was up 0.56% to 16.167.

In commodities trading, Gold for August delivery was down 0.96% or 11.70 to $1205.00 a troy ounce. Meanwhile, Crude oil for delivery in July fell 0.34% or 0.17 to hit $49.16 a barrel, while the August Brent oil contract fell 0.54% or 0.27 to trade at $49.68 a barrel.

AUD/USD was down 0.29% to 0.7160, while AUD/JPY rose 0.53% to 79.69.

The US Dollar Index was up 0.23% at 95.95.