Australia stocks lower at close of trade; S&P/ASX 200 down 1.24%

Investing.com – Australia stocks were lower after the close on Thursday, as losses in the , and sectors led shares lower.

At the close in Sydney, the declined 1.24%.

The best performers of the session on the were St Barbara Ltd (ASX:), which rose 18.85% or 0.05 points to trade at 0.29 at the close. Meanwhile, Resolute Mining Ltd (ASX:) added 3.70% or 0.02 points to end at 0.42 and EML Payments Ltd (ASX:) was up 2.96% or 0.02 points to 0.69 in late trade.

The worst performers of the session were Star Entertainment Group Ltd (ASX:), which fell 8.73% or 0.10 points to trade at 1.04 at the close. Magellan Financial Group Ltd (ASX:) declined 8.32% or 0.81 points to end at 8.92 and Polynovo Ltd (ASX:) was down 5.88% or 0.09 points to 1.44.

Falling stocks outnumbered advancing ones on the Sydney Stock Exchange by 786 to 551 and 526 ended unchanged.

Shares in St Barbara Ltd (ASX:) rose to 5-year lows; gaining 18.85% or 0.05 to 0.29.

The , which measures the implied volatility of S&P/ASX 200 options, was up 16.43% to 12.67.

Gold Futures for August delivery was down 0.08% or 1.60 to $1,925.50 a troy ounce. Elsewhere in commodities trading, Crude oil for delivery in August fell 0.21% or 0.15 to hit $71.64 a barrel, while the September Brent oil contract fell 0.38% or 0.29 to trade at $76.36 a barrel.

AUD/USD was unchanged 0.33% to 0.67, while AUD/JPY fell 0.19% to 96.08.

The US Dollar Index Futures was down 0.11% at 102.93.