Investing.com – Australia stocks were higher after the close on Wednesday, as gains in the Consumer Discretionary, Financials and Utilities sectors led shares higher.
At the close in Australia, the S&P/ASX 200 rose 0.07%.
The best performers of the session on the S&P/ASX 200 were Bradken Ltd (ASX:BKN), which rose 7.37% or 0.140 points to trade at 2.040 at the close. Meanwhile, Lynas Corporation Ltd (ASX:LYC) added 6.67% or 0.003 points to end at 0.048 and Southern Cross Media Group Ltd (ASX:SXL) was up 5.88% or 0.065 points to 1.170 in late trade.
The worst performers of the session were Monadelphous Group Ltd (ASX:MND), which fell 8.42% or 1.01 points to trade at 10.99 at the close. Spark New Zealand Ltd (ASX:SPK) declined 6.51% or 0.200 points to end at 2.870 and Beadell Resources Ltd (ASX:BDR) was down 5.17% or 0.015 points to 0.275.
Falling stocks outnumbered advancing ones on the Australia Stock Exchange by 315 to 283 and 38 ended unchanged.
The S&P/ASX 200 VIX, which measures the implied volatility of S&P/ASX 200 options, was up 1.43% to 12.728.
Gold for April delivery was down 0.20% or 2.40 to $1189.00 a troy ounce. Elsewhere in commodities trading, Crude oil for delivery in May fell 0.18% or 0.09 to hit $47.42 a barrel, while the May Brent oil contract rose 0.05% or 0.03 to trade at $55.20 a barrel.
AUD/USD was down 0.03% to 0.7876, while AUD/JPY fell 0.11% to 94.25.
The US Dollar Index was down 0.04% at 97.39.