Australia shares higher at close of trade; S&P/ASX 200 up 0.43%

Investing.com – Australia equities were higher at the close on Thursday, as gains in the Metals&Mining, Materials and Resources sectors propelled shares higher.

At the close in Sydney, the S&P/ASX 200 added 0.43%.

The biggest gainers of the session on the S&P/ASX 200 were Appen Ltd (ASX:APX), which rose 6.90% or 0.14 points to trade at 2.17 at the close. Mineral Resources Ltd (ASX:MIN) added 6.76% or 3.24 points to end at 51.18 and St Barbara Ltd (ASX:SBM) was up 4.48% or 0.02 points to 0.35 in late trade.

Biggest losers included Fletcher Building Ltd (ASX:FBU), which lost 2.43% or 0.07 points to trade at 2.81 in late trade. Ansell Ltd (ASX:ANN) declined 2.20% or 0.72 points to end at 32.04 and Spark New Zealand Ltd (ASX:SPK) shed 2.13% or 0.06 points to 2.76.

Advancing stocks outnumbered falling ones by 620 to 472 and 454 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 down 2.63% to 11.58.

In commodities trading, Gold Futures for December delivery was up 0.19% or 5.05 to $2,631.05 a troy ounce. Meanwhile, Crude oil for delivery in November rose 0.78% or 0.57 to hit $73.81 a barrel, while the December Brent oil contract rose 0.73% or 0.56 to trade at $77.14 a barrel.

AUD/USD was unchanged 0.25% to 0.67, while AUD/JPY rose 0.24% to 100.55.

The US Dollar Index Futures was unchanged 0.00% at 102.69.