Australia stocks were lower after the close on Thursday, as losses in the Consumer Staples, Consumer Discretionary and Utilities sectors led shares lower.

At the close in Sydney, the S&P/ASX 200 lost 0.27%.

The best performers of the session on the S&P/ASX 200 were Corporate Travel Managment Ltd (ASX:CTD), which rose 12.06% or 2.28 points to trade at 21.18 at the close. Meanwhile, EML Payments Ltd (ASX:EML) added 5.41% or 0.03 points to end at 0.58 and Nickel Mines Ltd (ASX:NIC) was up 5.35% or 0.05 points to 0.99 in late trade.

The worst performers of the session were Champion Iron Ltd (ASX:CIA), which fell 3.96% or 0.29 points to trade at 7.04 at the close. Domino’S Pizza Enterprises Ltd (ASX:DMP) declined 3.83% or 2.03 points to end at 50.97 and Mesoblast Ltd (ASX:MSB) was down 2.99% or 0.03 points to 0.98.

Falling stocks outnumbered advancing ones on the Sydney Stock Exchange by 642 to 576 and 450 ended unchanged.

The S&P/ASX 200 VIX, which measures the implied volatility of S&P/ASX 200 options, was down 4.19% to 13.33.

Gold Futures for June delivery was up 0.68% or 13.70 to $2,038.60 a troy ounce. Elsewhere in commodities trading, Crude oil for delivery in May fell 0.02% or 0.02 to hit $83.24 a barrel, while the June Brent oil contract fell 0.09% or 0.08 to trade at $87.25 a barrel.

AUD/USD was unchanged 0.55% to 0.67, while AUD/JPY rose 0.53% to 89.50.

The US Dollar Index Futures was down 0.03% at 101.14.