Australia shares higher at close of trade; S&P/ASX 200 up 0.86%

Investing.com – Australia equities were higher at the close on Thursday, as gains in the Gold, Industrials and Financials sectors propelled shares higher.

At the close in Sydney, the S&P/ASX 200 rose 0.86%.

The biggest gainers of the session on the S&P/ASX 200 were AMP Ltd (ASX:AMP), which rose 17.34% or 0.24 points to trade at 1.59 at the close. St Barbara Ltd (ASX:SBM) added 12.18% or 0.05 points to end at 0.44 and Westgold Resources Ltd (ASX:WGX) was up 10.00% or 0.27 points to 2.97 in late trade.

Biggest losers included Appen Ltd (ASX:APX), which lost 6.88% or 0.15 points to trade at 2.03 in late trade. Healius Ltd (ASX:HLS) declined 5.03% or 0.09 points to end at 1.70 and EML Payments Ltd (ASX:EML) shed 4.26% or 0.03 points to 0.62.

Advancing stocks outnumbered falling ones by 626 to 418 and 405 ended unchanged on the Sydney Stock Exchange.

The S&P/ASX 200 VIX, which measures the implied volatility of S&P/ASX 200 options, was up 1.38% to 12.19.

In commodities trading, Gold Futures for December delivery was up 0.26% or 7.10 to $2,698.40 a troy ounce. Meanwhile, Crude oil for delivery in November rose 0.43% or 0.30 to hit $70.69 a barrel, while the December Brent oil contract rose 0.38% or 0.28 to trade at $74.50 a barrel.

AUD/USD was unchanged 0.38% to 0.67, while AUD/JPY rose 0.24% to 100.02.

The US Dollar Index Futures was down 0.01% at 103.39.