Australia stocks lower at close of trade; S&P/ASX 200 down 1.40% By Investing.com

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

At the close in Sydney, the fell 1.40%.

The best performers of the session on the were Mesoblast Ltd (ASX:), which rose 8.21% or 0.08 points to trade at 1.05 at the close. Meanwhile, Sims Metal Management Ltd (ASX:) added 2.18% or 0.28 points to end at 13.10 and Fortescue Metals Group Ltd (ASX:) was up 1.85% or 0.32 points to 17.63 in late trade.

The worst performers of the session were Zip Co Ltd (ASX:), which fell 7.35% or 0.05 points to trade at 0.63 at the close. St Barbara Ltd (ASX:) declined 7.14% or 0.06 points to end at 0.71 and Silver Lake Resources Ltd (ASX:) was down 7.06% or 0.09 points to 1.18.

Falling stocks outnumbered advancing ones on the Sydney Stock Exchange by 942 to 343 and 339 ended unchanged.

The , which measures the implied volatility of S&P/ASX 200 options, was up 5.35% to 19.86.

Gold Futures for December delivery was down 1.05% or 17.95 to $1,691.35 a troy ounce. Elsewhere in commodities trading, Crude oil for delivery in November fell 0.42% or 0.39 to hit $92.25 a barrel, while the December Brent oil contract fell 0.49% or 0.48 to trade at $97.44 a barrel.

AUD/USD was down 0.88% to 0.63, while AUD/JPY fell 0.83% to 91.79.

The US Dollar Index Futures was up 0.24% at 112.96.