Investing.com – Australia stocks were lower after the close on Thursday, as losses in the Consumer Staples, Consumer Discretionary and IT sectors led shares lower.
At the close in Sydney, the S&P/ASX 200 lost 1.65%.
The best performers of the session on the S&P/ASX 200 were Aristocrat Leisure Ltd (ASX:ALL), which rose 6.74% or 2.13 points to trade at 33.73 at the close. Meanwhile, Polynovo Ltd (ASX:PNV) added 3.24% or 0.04 points to end at 1.27 and Unibail Rodamco Westfield (ASX:URW) was up 2.08% or 0.11 points to 5.40 in late trade.
The worst performers of the session were Nufarm Ltd (ASX:NUF), which fell 8.58% or 0.57 points to trade at 6.07 at the close. Wesfarmers Ltd (ASX:WES) declined 7.83% or 3.90 points to end at 45.89 and Pendal Group Ltd (ASX:PDL) was down 7.10% or 0.37 points to 4.84.
Falling stocks outnumbered advancing ones on the Sydney Stock Exchange by 1072 to 372 and 335 ended unchanged.
Shares in Wesfarmers Ltd (ASX:WES) fell to 52-week lows; losing 7.83% or 3.90 to 45.89.
The S&P/ASX 200 VIX, which measures the implied volatility of S&P/ASX 200 options, was up 10.91% to 18.41.
Gold Futures for June delivery was down 0.30% or 5.44 to $1,810.46 a troy ounce. Elsewhere in commodities trading, Crude oil for delivery in July rose 0.44% or 0.47 to hit $107.51 a barrel, while the July Brent oil contract rose 0.83% or 0.91 to trade at $110.02 a barrel.
AUD/USD was unchanged 0.33% to 0.70, while AUD/JPY rose 0.23% to 89.38.
The US Dollar Index Futures was down 0.08% at 103.78.