Investing.com – Australia stocks were lower after the close on Wednesday, as losses in the Gold, IT and A-REITs sectors led shares lower.
At the close in Sydney, the S&P/ASX 200 fell 0.70%.
The best performers of the session on the S&P/ASX 200 were Virgin Money PLC (ASX:VUK), which rose 4.05% or 0.12 points to trade at 3.08 at the close. Meanwhile, Alumina Ltd (ASX:AWC) added 3.88% or 0.070 points to end at 1.875 and Whitehaven Coal Ltd (ASX:WHC) was up 2.58% or 0.060 points to 2.390 in late trade.
The worst performers of the session were Pointsbet Holdings Ltd (ASX:PBH), which fell 7.58% or 0.56 points to trade at 6.83 at the close. Polynovo Ltd (ASX:PNV) declined 7.32% or 0.115 points to end at 1.455 and Hub24 Ltd (ASX:HUB) was down 7.25% or 2.12 points to 27.12.
Falling stocks outnumbered advancing ones on the Sydney Stock Exchange by 935 to 452 and 371 ended unchanged.
The S&P/ASX 200 VIX, which measures the implied volatility of S&P/ASX 200 options, was up 4.14% to 12.637.
Gold Futures for February delivery was down 0.25% or 4.50 to $1767.80 a troy ounce. Elsewhere in commodities trading, Crude oil for delivery in January fell 1.23% or 0.87 to hit $69.86 a barrel, while the February Brent oil contract fell 0.99% or 0.73 to trade at $72.97 a barrel.
AUD/USD was up 0.32% to 0.7125, while AUD/JPY rose 0.33% to 81.03.
The US Dollar Index Futures was down 0.10% at 96.440.