Australia stocks higher at close of trade; S&P/ASX 200 up 0.57%

Investing.com – Australia stocks were higher after the close on Wednesday, as gains in the Gold, Consumer Discretionary and Telecoms Services sectors led shares higher.

At the close in Sydney, the S&P/ASX 200 gained 0.57%.

The best performers of the session on the S&P/ASX 200 were Webjet Ltd (ASX:WEB), which rose 13.48% or 0.57 points to trade at 4.80 at the close. Meanwhile, EML Payments Ltd (ASX:EML) added 8.47% or 0.08 points to end at 0.96 and Domino’S Pizza Enterprises Ltd (ASX:DMP) was up 4.47% or 1.40 points to 32.75 in late trade.

The worst performers of the session were Zip Co Ltd (ASX:ZIP), which fell 2.99% or 0.10 points to trade at 3.25 at the close. Nufarm Ltd (ASX:NUF) declined 2.78% or 0.11 points to end at 3.84 and Bluescope Steel Ltd (ASX:BSL) was down 2.72% or 0.61 points to 21.82.

Rising stocks outnumbered declining ones on the Sydney Stock Exchange by 532 to 497 and 432 ended unchanged.

The S&P/ASX 200 VIX, which measures the implied volatility of S&P/ASX 200 options, was down 4.09% to 10.81.

Gold Futures for February delivery was up 0.73% or 19.27 to $2,665.57 a troy ounce. Elsewhere in commodities trading, Crude oil for delivery in January rose 0.10% or 0.07 to hit $68.84 a barrel, while the February Brent oil contract rose 0.10% or 0.07 to trade at $72.39 a barrel.

AUD/USD was unchanged 0.02% to 0.65, while AUD/JPY fell 0.59% to 98.56.

The US Dollar Index Futures was down 0.12% at 106.84.