Australia stocks higher at close of trade; S&P/ASX 200 up 1.74%

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

At the close in Sydney, the S&P/ASX 200 rose 1.74%.

The best performers of the session on the S&P/ASX 200 were Hub24 Ltd (ASX:HUB), which rose 9.71% or 2.08 points to trade at 23.50 at the close. Meanwhile, Pointsbet Holdings Ltd (ASX:PBH) added 9.09% or 0.17 points to end at 2.04 and Mesoblast Ltd (ASX:MSB) was up 7.74% or 0.07 points to 0.90 in late trade.

The worst performers of the session were Ramelius Resources Ltd (ASX:RMS), which fell 4.86% or 0.04 points to trade at 0.69 at the close. Sims Metal Management Ltd (ASX:SGM) declined 3.49% or 0.47 points to end at 13.00 and Incitec Pivot Ltd (ASX:IPL) was down 2.43% or 0.09 points to 3.61.

Rising stocks outnumbered declining ones on the Sydney Stock Exchange by 853 to 463 and 344 ended unchanged.

The S&P/ASX 200 VIX, which measures the implied volatility of S&P/ASX 200 options, was down 2.75% to 18.99.

Gold Futures for December delivery was down 0.18% or 3.10 to $1,727.40 a troy ounce. Elsewhere in commodities trading, Crude oil for delivery in November fell 0.12% or 0.10 to hit $86.42 a barrel, while the December Brent oil contract fell 0.09% or 0.08 to trade at $91.72 a barrel.

AUD/USD was unchanged 0.12% to 0.65, while AUD/JPY rose 0.12% to 93.78.

The US Dollar Index Futures was up 0.45% at 110.47.