Investing.com – Australia stocks were higher after the close on Wednesday, as gains in the Metals & Mining, Resources and Materials sectors led shares higher.
At the close in Sydney, the S&P/ASX 200 gained 0.03%.
The best performers of the session on the S&P/ASX 200 were Sandfire Resources NL (ASX:SFR), which rose 12.27% or 0.590 points to trade at 5.400 at the close. Meanwhile, Mesoblast Ltd (ASX:MSB) added 7.26% or 0.300 points to end at 4.430 and Westgold Resources Ltd (ASX:WGX) was up 6.69% or 0.160 points to 2.550 in late trade.
The worst performers of the session were Nearmap Ltd (ASX:NEA), which fell 5.98% or 0.140 points to trade at 2.200 at the close. Appen Ltd (ASX:APX) declined 4.08% or 1.32 points to end at 31.02 and Worleyparsons Ltd (ASX:WOR) was down 3.92% or 0.51 points to 12.49.
Rising stocks outnumbered declining ones on the Sydney Stock Exchange by 679 to 549 and 372 ended unchanged.
The S&P/ASX 200 VIX, which measures the implied volatility of S&P/ASX 200 options, was down 4.62% to 14.477.
Gold Futures for February delivery was down 0.04% or 0.65 to $1818.25 a troy ounce. Elsewhere in commodities trading, Crude oil for delivery in January fell 0.34% or 0.15 to hit $44.40 a barrel, while the February Brent oil contract fell 0.21% or 0.10 to trade at $47.32 a barrel.
AUD/USD was up 0.18% to 0.7382, while AUD/JPY rose 0.34% to 77.12.
The US Dollar Index Futures was down 0.21% at 91.105.