Investing.com – Australia equities were higher at the close on Thursday, as gains in the Gold, Industrials and IT sectors propelled shares higher.
At the close in Sydney, the S&P/ASX 200 added 0.13%.
The biggest gainers of the session on the S&P/ASX 200 were Breville Group Ltd (AX:BRG), which rose 12.13% or 0.730 points to trade at 6.750 at the close. Worleyparsons Ltd (AX:WOR) added 9.02% or 0.330 points to end at 3.990 and Iress Ltd (AX:IRE) was up 8.12% or 0.730 points to 9.720 in late trade.
Biggest losers included Village Roadshow Ltd (AX:VRL), which lost 13.43% or 0.920 points to trade at 5.930 in late trade. Select Harvests Ltd (AX:SHV) declined 8.70% or 0.460 points to end at 4.830 and Blackmores Ltd (AX:BKL) shed 4.81% or 7.930 points to 157.070.
Declining stocks outnumbered rising ones by 478 to 439 and 251 ended unchanged on the Sydney Stock Exchange.
The S&P/ASX 200 VIX, which measures the implied volatility of S&P/ASX 200 options, was down 2.80% to 23.011.
In commodities trading, Gold for April delivery was down 0.15% or 1.90 to $1237.20 a troy ounce. Meanwhile, Crude oil for delivery in April fell 0.72% or 0.23 to hit $31.92 a barrel, while the April Brent oil contract fell 0.73% or 0.25 to trade at $34.16 a barrel.
AUD/USD was down 0.28% to 0.7177, while AUD/JPY fell 0.28% to 80.50.
The US Dollar Index was down 0.07% at 97.44.