Investing.com – Australia equities were higher at the close on Friday, as gains in the IT, Gold and Real Estate Investment sectors propelled shares higher.
At the close in Sydney, the S&P/ASX 200 rose 1.25%.
The biggest gainers of the session on the S&P/ASX 200 were Idp Education Ltd (ASX:IEL), which rose 7.81% or 1.06 points to trade at 14.64 at the close. News Corp B DRC (ASX:NWS) added 7.62% or 3.16 points to end at 44.54 and EML Payments Ltd (ASX:EML) was up 7.19% or 0.06 points to 0.82 in late trade.
Biggest losers included Omni Bridgeway Ltd (ASX:OBL), which lost 3.11% or 0.03 points to trade at 0.94 in late trade. Nanosonics Ltd (ASX:NAN) declined 1.67% or 0.05 points to end at 2.95 and Qbe Insurance Group Ltd (ASX:QBE) shed 1.65% or 0.27 points to 16.06.
Advancing stocks outnumbered falling ones by 773 to 330 and 391 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 1.67% to 14.45.
In commodities trading, Gold Futures for December delivery was down 0.25% or 6.10 to $2,457.20 a troy ounce. Meanwhile, Crude oil for delivery in September unchanged 0.00% or 0.00 to hit $76.19 a barrel, while the October Brent oil contract fell 0.08% or 0.06 to trade at $79.10 a barrel.
AUD/USD was unchanged 0.07% to 0.66, while AUD/JPY unchanged 0.00% to 97.04.
The US Dollar Index Futures was down 0.06% at 102.96.