Investing.com – Australia stocks were lower after the close on Friday, as losses in the Utilities, Healthcare and IT sectors led shares lower.
At the close in Sydney, the S&P/ASX 200 lost 1.02%.
The best performers of the session on the S&P/ASX 200 were Magellan Financial Group Ltd (ASX:MFG), which rose 18.45% or 3.38 points to trade at 21.70 at the close. Meanwhile, NRW Holdings Ltd (ASX:NWH) added 6.53% or 0.13 points to end at 2.12 and Netwealth Group Ltd (ASX:NWL) was up 5.71% or 0.76 points to 14.06 in late trade.
The worst performers of the session were Qbe Insurance Group Ltd (ASX:QBE), which fell 8.70% or 1.100 points to trade at 11.550 at the close. Origin Energy Ltd (ASX:ORG) declined 8.28% or 0.510 points to end at 5.650 and Incitec Pivot Ltd (ASX:IPL) was down 6.13% or 0.200 points to 3.060.
Falling stocks outnumbered advancing ones on the Sydney Stock Exchange by 795 to 592 and 424 ended unchanged.
The S&P/ASX 200 VIX, which measures the implied volatility of S&P/ASX 200 options, was up 8.45% to 16.598.
Gold Futures for April delivery was down 0.42% or 7.90 to $1894.10 a troy ounce. Elsewhere in commodities trading, Crude oil for delivery in March fell 0.89% or 0.82 to hit $90.94 a barrel, while the April Brent oil contract fell 0.82% or 0.76 to trade at $92.21 a barrel.
AUD/USD was up 0.39% to 0.7211, while AUD/JPY rose 0.56% to 83.01.
The US Dollar Index Futures was down 0.06% at 95.743.