Australia stocks higher at close of trade; S&P/ASX 200 up 0.06% By Investing.com

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

At the close in Sydney, the rose 0.06%.

The best performers of the session on the were Zip Co Ltd (ASX:), which rose 11.71% or 0.07 points to trade at 0.62 at the close. Meanwhile, St Barbara Ltd (ASX:) added 8.18% or 0.07 points to end at 0.86 and Polynovo Ltd (ASX:) was up 7.43% or 0.15 points to 2.17 in late trade.

The worst performers of the session were Costa Group Holdings Ltd (ASX:), which fell 3.21% or 0.09 points to trade at 2.71 at the close. Beach Energy Ltd (ASX:) declined 2.53% or 0.04 points to end at 1.54 and Computershare Ltd. (ASX:) was down 2.20% or 0.58 points to 25.76.

Rising stocks outnumbered declining ones on the Sydney Stock Exchange by 716 to 471 and 395 ended unchanged.

The , which measures the implied volatility of S&P/ASX 200 options, was down 0.89% to 12.98.

Gold Futures for February delivery was down 0.06% or 1.15 to $1,857.85 a troy ounce. Elsewhere in commodities trading, Crude oil for delivery in February rose 1.07% or 0.78 to hit $73.62 a barrel, while the March Brent oil contract rose 0.99% or 0.77 to trade at $78.61 a barrel.

AUD/USD was unchanged 0.25% to 0.68, while AUD/JPY fell 0.48% to 90.24.

The US Dollar Index Futures was up 0.08% at 104.11.