Investing.com – Australia equities were higher at the close on Thursday, as gains in the Real Estate Investment, Telecoms Services and Industrials sectors propelled shares higher.
At the close in Sydney, the S&P/ASX 200 added 0.09%.
The biggest gainers of the session on the S&P/ASX 200 were Mesoblast Ltd (ASX:MSB), which rose 8.84% or 0.11 points to trade at 1.36 at the close. Fletcher Building Ltd (ASX:FBU) added 3.19% or 0.09 points to end at 2.91 and Monadelphous Group Ltd (ASX:MND) was up 3.05% or 0.39 points to 13.18 in late trade.
Biggest losers included Appen Ltd (ASX:APX), which lost 7.87% or 0.17 points to trade at 1.99 in late trade. EML Payments Ltd (ASX:EML) declined 4.76% or 0.03 points to end at 0.60 and ARB Corporation Ltd (ASX:ARB) shed 4.74% or 2.21 points to 44.40.
Declining stocks outnumbered rising ones by 592 to 513 and 432 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 1.93% to 11.87.
In commodities trading, Gold Futures for December delivery was up 0.21% or 5.70 to $2,675.40 a troy ounce. Meanwhile, Crude oil for delivery in November rose 1.51% or 1.06 to hit $71.16 a barrel, while the December Brent oil contract rose 1.35% or 1.00 to trade at $74.90 a barrel.
AUD/USD was unchanged 0.27% to 0.69, while AUD/JPY fell 0.14% to 100.71.
The US Dollar Index Futures was up 0.20% at 101.63.