Australia shares end marginally lower on tech losses, await corporate earnings

Australian shares ended marginally lower on Thursday as gains among gold stocks were pared by losses among tech and industrial stocks, and as investors looked forward to important corporate earnings results slated for next week.

The S&P/ASX 200 index closed down 0.1% at 6,850.1 points.

Earnings reports from a number of Australian heavyweights, including BHP Group, Rio Tinto and National Australia Bank, are scheduled for release next week.

Domestic gold stocks jumped 1.7% after the country's top independent gold producer Newcrest Mining said its underlying half-year profit had nearly doubled.

Shares of Newcrest ended the session 4% higher, while its smaller peers De Grey Mining and Northern Star rose 4.1% and 1.7%, respectively.

Mining stocks were also higher, with global miners Rio Tinto and BHP Group gaining 1.1% and 0.9%, respectively.

Tech stocks dropped 2.1%, mirroring their peers on Wall Street which slipped from record levels in the last trading session.

Buy-now-pay-later company Afterpay was down 2.3%, while machine learning company Appen lost 2.4%.

Industrial stocks were also lower, with airport operator Auckland International Airport Ltd and construction services provider CIMIC Group Ltd down 1.4% and 3.3%, respectively.

Meanwhile, wealth manager AMP Ltd was the biggest loser on the benchmark index having dropped as much as 11% after US-based Ares Management withdrew its $4.5 billion buyout offer, and as it posted a 32% fall in annual profit.

New Zealand's benchmark S&P/NZX 50 index fell 0.5%, hurt by losses among tech and healthcare shares.