Investing.com – Australia stocks were higher after the close on Thursday, as gains in the Gold, Metals & Mining and Resources sectors led shares higher.
At the close in Australia, the S&P/ASX 200 rose 0.60%.
The best performers of the session on the S&P/ASX 200 were Arrium Ltd (ASX:ARI), which rose 18.97% or 0.028 points to trade at 0.172 at the close. Meanwhile, AWE Ltd (ASX:AWE) added 11.11% or 0.140 points to end at 1.400 and UGL Ltd (ASX:UGL) was up 9.70% or 0.145 points to 1.640 in late trade.
The worst performers of the session were Iluka Resources Ltd (ASX:ILU), which fell 8.37% or 0.700 points to trade at 7.660 at the close. ALS Ltd (ASX:ALQ) declined 5.08% or 0.250 points to end at 4.670 and Liquefied Natural Gas Ltd (ASX:LNG) was down 3.98% or 0.180 points to 4.340.
Rising stocks outnumbered declining ones on the Australia Stock Exchange by 585 to 409 and 166 ended unchanged.
The S&P/ASX 200 VIX, which measures the implied volatility of S&P/ASX 200 options, was down 0.07% to 13.483.
Gold for June delivery was down 0.02% or 0.20 to $1201.10 a troy ounce. Elsewhere in commodities trading, Crude oil for delivery in May fell 0.20% or 0.12 to hit $56.27 a barrel, while the June Brent oil contract rose 0.36% or 0.23 to trade at $63.08 a barrel.
AUD/USD was up 0.81% to 0.7742, while AUD/JPY rose 0.97% to 92.39.
The US Dollar Index was up 0.04% at 98.59.