Investing.com – Australia equities were higher at the close on Tuesday, as gains in the Gold, Metals & Mining and Materials sectors propelled shares higher.
At the close in Sydney, the S&P/ASX 200 rose 0.22%.
The biggest gainers of the session on the S&P/ASX 200 were Arrium Ltd (ASX:ARI), which rose 20.00% or 0.035 points to trade at 0.210 at the close. Drillsearch Energy Ltd (ASX:DLS) added 7.28% or 0.075 points to end at 1.105 and Spotless Fp (ASX:SPO) was up 7.27% or 0.16 points to 2.36 in late trade.
Biggest losers included Kathmandu Holdings Ltd (ASX:KMD), which lost 12.42% or 0.195 points to trade at 1.375 in late trade. Monadelphous Group Ltd (ASX:MND) declined 7.69% or 1.00 points to end at 12.00 and Liquefied Natural Gas Ltd (ASX:LNG) shed 4.14% or 0.130 points to 3.010.
Advancing stocks outnumbered falling ones by 341 to 253 and 39 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 2.54% to 12.549.
In commodities trading, Gold for April delivery was down 0.08% or 0.90 to $1186.80 a troy ounce. Meanwhile, Crude Oil for delivery in May fell 1.28% or 0.60 to hit $46.84 a barrel, while the May Brent Oil contract fell 0.52% or 0.29 to trade at $55.51 a barrel.
AUD/USD was down 0.18% to 0.7866, while AUD/JPY fell 0.32% to 94.05.
The US Dollar Index was up 0.18% at 97.37.