Investing.com – Australia equities were higher at the close on Friday, as gains in the Gold, Consumer Discretionary and Financials sectors propelled shares higher.
At the close in Sydney, the S&P/ASX 200 added 0.50%.
The biggest gainers of the session on the S&P/ASX 200 were Appen Ltd (ASX:APX), which rose 16.21% or 0.36 points to trade at 2.55 at the close. Mesoblast Ltd (ASX:MSB) added 10.98% or 0.28 points to end at 2.83 and St Barbara Ltd (ASX:SBM) was up 10.00% or 0.02 points to 0.22 in late trade.
Biggest losers included Nanosonics Ltd (ASX:NAN), which lost 2.27% or 0.07 points to trade at 3.01 in late trade. Tabcorp Holdings Ltd (ASX:TAH) declined 1.69% or 0.01 points to end at 0.58 and Wisetech Global Ltd (ASX:WTC) shed 1.59% or 1.97 points to 122.04.
Advancing stocks outnumbered falling ones by 707 to 354 and 453 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 5.67% to 10.59.
In commodities trading, Gold Futures for February delivery was down 0.14% or 3.79 to $2,650.11 a troy ounce. Meanwhile, Crude oil for delivery in February fell 0.04% or 0.03 to hit $69.59 a barrel, while the March Brent oil contract fell 0.03% or 0.02 to trade at $72.83 a barrel.
AUD/USD was unchanged 0.14% to 0.62, while AUD/JPY fell 0.37% to 97.92.
The US Dollar Index Futures was up 0.05% at 107.95.