Australia stocks higher at close of trade; S&P/ASX 200 up 0.74%

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

At the close in Sydney, the S&P/ASX 200 added 0.74%.

The best performers of the session on the S&P/ASX 200 were Iress Ltd (ASX:IRE), which rose 14.71% or 0.90 points to trade at 7.02 at the close. Meanwhile, EML Payments Ltd (ASX:EML) added 11.69% or 0.09 points to end at 0.86 and Zip Co Ltd (ASX:ZIP) was up 5.26% or 0.02 points to 0.40 in late trade.

The worst performers of the session were Omni Bridgeway Ltd (ASX:OBL), which fell 3.96% or 0.07 points to trade at 1.57 at the close. Goodman Group (ASX:GMG) declined 2.98% or 0.69 points to end at 22.63 and Corporate Travel Managment Ltd (ASX:CTD) was down 2.44% or 0.45 points to 17.97.

Rising stocks outnumbered declining ones on the Sydney Stock Exchange by 642 to 549 and 388 ended unchanged.

The S&P/ASX 200 VIX, which measures the implied volatility of S&P/ASX 200 options, was down 5.08% to 9.67 a new 5-year low.

Gold Futures for December delivery was down 0.15% or 3.00 to $2,044.10 a troy ounce. Elsewhere in commodities trading, Crude oil for delivery in January rose 0.28% or 0.22 to hit $78.08 a barrel, while the February Brent oil contract rose 0.23% or 0.19 to trade at $83.07 a barrel.

AUD/USD was unchanged 0.38% to 0.66, while AUD/JPY rose 0.24% to 97.68.

The US Dollar Index Futures was up 0.08% at 102.76.