Australia stocks higher at close of trade; S&P/ASX 200 up 0.60%

Investing.com – Australia stocks were higher after the close on Friday, as gains in the Gold , Energy and A-REITs sectors led shares higher.

At the close in Sydney, the S&P/ASX 200 rose 0.60%.

The best performers of the session on the S&P/ASX 200 were Zip Co Ltd (ASX:ZIP ), which rose 3.70% or 0.11 points to trade at 3.08 at the close. Meanwhile, St Barbara Ltd (ASX:SBM ) added 4.26% or 0.01 points to end at 0.25 and Ampol Ltd (ASX:ALD ) was up 2.35% or 0.67 points to 29.21 in late trade.

The worst performers of the session were Mesoblast Ltd (ASX:MSB ), which fell 5.37% or 0.18 points to trade at 3.17 at the close. Appen Ltd (ASX:APX ) declined 1.77% or 0.05 points to end at 2.77 and Fortescue Metals Group Ltd (ASX:FMG ) was down 2.13% or 0.40 points to 18.41.

Rising stocks outnumbered declining ones on the Sydney Stock Exchange by 629 to 426 and 426 ended unchanged.

The S&P/ASX 200 VIX , which measures the implied volatility of S&P/ASX 200 options, was down 2.86% to 10.79.

Gold Futures for February delivery was up 0.23% or 6.07 to $2,675.07 a troy ounce. Elsewhere in commodities trading, Crude oil for delivery in February rose 0.25% or 0.18 to hit $73.31 a barrel, while the March Brent oil contract rose 0.21% or 0.16 to trade at $76.09 a barrel.

AUD/USD was unchanged 0.27% to 0.62, while AUD/JPY rose 0.12% to 97.83.

The US Dollar Index Futures was down 0.21% at 108.98.

Source: Investing.com