Australia stocks higher at close of trade; S&P/ASX 200 up 0.10%

Investing.com – Australia stocks were higher after the close on Thursday, as gains in the Telecoms Services, IT and Financials sectors led shares higher.

At the close in Sydney, the S&P/ASX 200 added 0.10%.

The best performers of the session on the S&P/ASX 200 were Mesoblast Ltd (ASX:MSB), which rose 12.09% or 0.06 points to trade at 0.51 at the close. Meanwhile, IGO Ltd (ASX:IGO) added 5.45% or 0.72 points to end at 13.92 and Harvey Norman Holdings Ltd (ASX:HVN) was up 5.21% or 0.20 points to 4.04 in late trade.

The worst performers of the session were Whitehaven Coal Ltd (ASX:WHC), which fell 9.38% or 0.63 points to trade at 6.09 at the close. Zip Co Ltd (ASX:ZIP) declined 8.82% or 0.03 points to end at 0.31 and Webjet Ltd (ASX:WEB) was down 6.06% or 0.45 points to 6.98.

Rising stocks outnumbered declining ones on the Sydney Stock Exchange by 679 to 593 and 422 ended unchanged.

Shares in Zip Co Ltd (ASX:ZIP) fell to 5-year lows; losing 8.82% or 0.03 to 0.31.

The S&P/ASX 200 VIX, which measures the implied volatility of S&P/ASX 200 options, was down 7.27% to 10.98.

Gold Futures for December delivery was down 0.06% or 1.15 to $1,971.85 a troy ounce. Elsewhere in commodities trading, Crude oil for delivery in October rose 0.21% or 0.17 to hit $81.80 a barrel, while the November Brent oil contract rose 0.12% or 0.10 to trade at $85.34 a barrel.

AUD/USD was unchanged 0.07% to 0.65, while AUD/JPY fell 0.15% to 94.55.

The US Dollar Index Futures was up 0.14% at 103.24.