Australia stocks higher at close of trade; S&P/ASX 200 up 1.67%

Investing.com – Australia stocks were higher after the close on Monday, as gains in the Financials , Consumer Discretionary and A-REITs sectors led shares higher.

At the close in Sydney, the S&P/ASX 200 gained 1.67%.

The best performers of the session on the S&P/ASX 200 were Appen Ltd (ASX:APX ), which rose 6.51% or 0.14 points to trade at 2.29 at the close. Meanwhile, Polynovo Ltd (ASX:PNV ) added 5.64% or 0.11 points to end at 2.06 and Zip Co Ltd (ASX:ZIP ) was up 4.59% or 0.13 points to 2.96 in late trade.

The worst performers of the session were EML Payments Ltd (ASX:EML ), which fell 22.22% or 0.20 points to trade at 0.70 at the close. Pointsbet Holdings Ltd (ASX:PBH ) declined 3.90% or 0.04 points to end at 0.99 and Resmed Inc DRC (ASX:RMD ) was down 0.84% or 0.31 points to 36.50.

Rising stocks outnumbered declining ones on the Sydney Stock Exchange by 718 to 352 and 446 ended unchanged.

The S&P/ASX 200 VIX , which measures the implied volatility of S&P/ASX 200 options, was up 0.46% to 11.76.

Gold Futures for February delivery was down 0.06% or 1.70 to $2,643.40 a troy ounce. Elsewhere in commodities trading, Crude oil for delivery in February rose 0.50% or 0.35 to hit $69.81 a barrel, while the March Brent oil contract rose 0.45% or 0.33 to trade at $72.89 a barrel.

AUD/USD was unchanged 0.13% to 0.63, while AUD/JPY rose 0.37% to 98.03.

The US Dollar Index Futures was up 0.12% at 107.49.

Source: Investing.com