Investing.com – Australia stocks were higher after the close on Wednesday, as gains in the A-REITs, Healthcare and Materials sectors led shares higher.
At the close in Sydney, the S&P/ASX 200 rose 0.31%.
The best performers of the session on the S&P/ASX 200 were St Barbara Ltd (ASX:SBM), which rose 19.57% or 0.05 points to trade at 0.28 at the close. Meanwhile, Appen Ltd (ASX:APX) added 14.18% or 0.10 points to end at 0.77 and Nuix Ltd (ASX:NXL) was up 6.39% or 0.13 points to 2.08 in late trade.
The worst performers of the session were Westgold Resources Ltd (ASX:WGX), which fell 4.34% or 0.10 points to trade at 2.10 at the close. Mesoblast Ltd (ASX:MSB) declined 3.85% or 0.04 points to end at 0.88 and Wisetech Global Ltd (ASX:WTC) was down 3.28% or 3.01 points to 88.88.
Rising stocks outnumbered declining ones on the Sydney Stock Exchange by 615 to 556 and 457 ended unchanged.
The S&P/ASX 200 VIX, which measures the implied volatility of S&P/ASX 200 options, was up 2.88% to 11.31.
Gold Futures for June delivery was up 0.58% or 13.70 to $2,376.10 a troy ounce. Elsewhere in commodities trading, Crude oil for delivery in May rose 0.33% or 0.28 to hit $85.51 a barrel, while the June Brent oil contract rose 0.31% or 0.28 to trade at $89.70 a barrel.
AUD/USD was unchanged 0.05% to 0.66, while AUD/JPY fell 0.06% to 100.54.
The US Dollar Index Futures was up 0.01% at 103.93.