Investing.com – Australia equities were higher at the close on Friday, as gains in the Healthcare, Utilities and IT sectors propelled shares higher.
At the close in Sydney, the S&P/ASX 200 rose 0.52%.
The biggest gainers of the session on the S&P/ASX 200 were Ainsworth Game Technology Ltd (ASX:AGI), which rose 8.30% or 0.230 points to trade at 3.000 at the close. Resmed Inc (ASX:RMD) added 6.38% or 0.480 points to end at 8.000 and Henderson Group PLC (ASX:HGG) was up 5.69% or 0.320 points to 5.940 in late trade.
Biggest losers included Paladin Energy Ltd (ASX:PDN), which lost 8.89% or 0.020 points to trade at 0.205 in late trade. Evolution Mining Ltd (ASX:EVN) declined 4.31% or 0.045 points to end at 1.000 and Senex Energy Ltd (ASX:SXY) shed 4.08% or 0.010 points to 0.235.
Advancing stocks outnumbered falling ones by 545 to 470 and 173 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 3.71% to 14.549.
In commodities trading, Gold for December delivery was down 0.71% or 7.70 to $1081.00 a troy ounce. Meanwhile, Crude oil for delivery in September fell 1.02% or 0.49 to hit $48.02 a barrel, while the September Brent oil contract fell 0.98% or 0.52 to trade at $52.79 a barrel.
AUD/USD was down 0.14% to 0.7282, while AUD/JPY fell 0.10% to 90.44.
The US Dollar Index was down 0.11% at 97.50.