Australia stocks were lower after the close on Tuesday, as losses in the Consumer Staples, Gold and IT sectors led shares lower.

At the close in Sydney, the S&P/ASX 200 declined 0.45%.

The best performers of the session on the S&P/ASX 200 were James Hardie Industries PLC (ASX:JHX), which rose 8.27% or 2.81 points to trade at 36.80 at the close. Meanwhile, Mesoblast Ltd (ASX:MSB) added 6.02% or 0.07 points to end at 1.14 and Kogan.com Ltd (ASX:KGN) was up 3.38% or 0.14 points to 4.28 in late trade.

The worst performers of the session were Pointsbet Holdings Ltd (ASX:PBH), which fell 6.53% or 0.10 points to trade at 1.36 at the close. AP Eagers Ltd (ASX:APE) declined 5.92% or 0.84 points to end at 13.34 and Hub24 Ltd (ASX:HUB) was down 4.94% or 1.38 points to 26.56.

Falling stocks outnumbered advancing ones on the Sydney Stock Exchange by 780 to 433 and 473 ended unchanged.

The S&P/ASX 200 VIX, which measures the implied volatility of S&P/ASX 200 options, was up 2.51% to 12.21.

Gold Futures for June delivery was down 0.53% or 10.75 to $2,011.95 a troy ounce. Elsewhere in commodities trading, Crude oil for delivery in June rose 0.32% or 0.23 to hit $71.34 a barrel, while the July Brent oil contract rose 0.39% or 0.29 to trade at $75.52 a barrel.

AUD/USD was unchanged 0.24% to 0.67, while AUD/JPY fell 0.42% to 90.82.

The US Dollar Index Futures was down 0.06% at 102.21.