Australia stocks higher at close of trade; S&P/ASX 200 up 1.02%

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

At the close in Sydney, the S&P/ASX 200 gained 1.02%.

The best performers of the session on the S&P/ASX 200 were Mesoblast Ltd (ASX:MSB), which rose 14.15% or 0.04 points to trade at 0.30 at the close. Meanwhile, Zip Co Ltd (ASX:ZIP) added 11.40% or 0.07 points to end at 0.64 and EML Payments Ltd (ASX:EML) was up 8.79% or 0.08 points to 0.99 in late trade.

The worst performers of the session were Star Entertainment Group Ltd (ASX:SGR), which fell 3.00% or 0.02 points to trade at 0.48 at the close. St Barbara Ltd (ASX:SBM) declined 2.78% or 0.01 points to end at 0.18 and Perenti Global Ltd (ASX:PRN) was down 2.67% or 0.03 points to 0.91.

Rising stocks outnumbered declining ones on the Sydney Stock Exchange by 597 to 550 and 367 ended unchanged.

The S&P/ASX 200 VIX, which measures the implied volatility of S&P/ASX 200 options, was down 4.14% to 11.27.

Gold Futures for February delivery was up 0.04% or 0.85 to $2,022.45 a troy ounce. Elsewhere in commodities trading, Crude oil for delivery in March fell 0.08% or 0.06 to hit $73.89 a barrel, while the March Brent oil contract fell 0.23% or 0.18 to trade at $78.92 a barrel.

AUD/USD was unchanged 0.12% to 0.66, while AUD/JPY rose 0.30% to 97.67.

The US Dollar Index Futures was down 0.13% at 103.17.