Australia stocks higher at close of trade; S&P/ASX 200 up 0.50%

Investing.com – Australia stocks were higher after the close on Friday, as gains in the Gold , Consumer Discretionary and Financials sectors led shares higher.

At the close in Sydney, the S&P/ASX 200 rose 0.50%.

The best performers of the session on the S&P/ASX 200 were Appen Ltd (ASX:APX ), which rose 16.21% or 0.36 points to trade at 2.55 at the close. Meanwhile, Mesoblast Ltd (ASX:MSB ) added 10.98% or 0.28 points to end at 2.83 and St Barbara Ltd (ASX:SBM ) was up 10.00% or 0.02 points to 0.22 in late trade.

The worst performers of the session were Tabcorp Holdings Ltd (ASX:TAH ), which fell 1.69% or 0.01 points to trade at 0.58 at the close. Nanosonics Ltd (ASX:NAN ) declined 2.27% or 0.07 points to end at 3.01 and Beach Energy Ltd (ASX:BPT ) was down 1.08% or 0.02 points to 1.38.

Rising stocks outnumbered declining ones on the Sydney Stock Exchange by 694 to 358 and 432 ended unchanged.

The S&P/ASX 200 VIX , which measures the implied volatility of S&P/ASX 200 options, was down 5.67% to 10.59.

Gold Futures for February delivery was down 0.15% or 3.89 to $2,650.01 a troy ounce. Elsewhere in commodities trading, Crude oil for delivery in February fell 0.04% or 0.03 to hit $69.59 a barrel, while the March Brent oil contract fell 0.03% or 0.02 to trade at $72.83 a barrel.

AUD/USD was unchanged 0.14% to 0.62, while AUD/JPY fell 0.37% to 97.92.

The US Dollar Index Futures was up 0.05% at 107.94.

Source: Investing.com