Investing.com – Australia stocks were higher after the close on Thursday, as gains in the IT, Financials and Metals & Mining sectors led shares higher.
At the close in Sydney, the S&P/ASX 200 rose 0.28%.
The best performers of the session on the S&P/ASX 200 were Bapcor Ltd (ASX:BAP), which rose 10.00% or 0.65 points to trade at 7.15 at the close. Meanwhile, Megaport Ltd (ASX:MP1) added 7.64% or 1.04 points to end at 14.65 and AMP Ltd (ASX:AMP) was up 5.94% or 0.060 points to 1.070 in late trade.
The worst performers of the session were Cimic Group Ltd (ASX:CIM), which fell 7.13% or 1.22 points to trade at 15.89 at the close. ASX Ltd (ASX:ASX) declined 3.81% or 3.30 points to end at 83.41 and AGL Energy Ltd (ASX:AGL) was down 3.45% or 0.26 points to 7.27.
Rising stocks outnumbered declining ones on the Sydney Stock Exchange by 786 to 655 and 374 ended unchanged.
The S&P/ASX 200 VIX, which measures the implied volatility of S&P/ASX 200 options, was down 1.42% to 13.709.
Gold Futures for April delivery was down 0.02% or 0.30 to $1836.30 a troy ounce. Elsewhere in commodities trading, Crude oil for delivery in March rose 0.01% or 0.01 to hit $89.67 a barrel, while the April Brent oil contract fell 0.09% or 0.08 to trade at $91.47 a barrel.
AUD/USD was up 0.04% to 0.7181, while AUD/JPY rose 0.13% to 83.01.
The US Dollar Index Futures was up 0.02% at 95.517.