Australia shares lower at close of trade; S&P/ASX 200 down 0.69%

Investing.com – Australia equities were lower at the close on Monday, as losses in the Consumer Staples, Real Estate Investment and Consumer Discretionary sectors propelled shares lower.

At the close in Sydney, the S&P/ASX 200 lost 0.69%.

The biggest gainers of the session on the S&P/ASX 200 were Appen Ltd (ASX:APX), which rose 18.75% or 0.33 points to trade at 2.09 at the close. Omni Bridgeway Ltd (ASX:OBL) added 8.16% or 0.08 points to end at 1.06 and Healius Ltd (ASX:HLS) was up 7.45% or 0.12 points to 1.73 in late trade.

Biggest losers included Webjet Ltd (ASX:WEB), which lost 10.69% or 0.88 points to trade at 7.35 in late trade. Spark New Zealand Ltd (ASX:SPK) declined 3.32% or 0.10 points to end at 2.91 and Cromwell Property Group (ASX:CMW) shed 3.53% or 0.02 points to 0.41.

Declining stocks outnumbered rising ones by 600 to 488 and 485 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 1.91% to 11.90.

In commodities trading, Gold Futures for December delivery was up 0.26% or 6.75 to $2,652.95 a troy ounce. Meanwhile, Crude oil for delivery in November rose 0.63% or 0.45 to hit $71.45 a barrel, while the December Brent oil contract rose 0.61% or 0.45 to trade at $74.14 a barrel.

AUD/USD was unchanged 0.31% to 0.68, while AUD/JPY rose 0.36% to 98.28.

The US Dollar Index Futures was up 0.05% at 100.47.