Investing.com – Australia stocks were higher after the close on Thursday, as gains in the IT, Consumer Staples and Healthcare sectors led shares higher.
At the close in Sydney, the S&P/ASX 200 rose 0.74%.
The best performers of the session on the S&P/ASX 200 were ALS Ltd (ASX:ALQ), which rose 6.51% or 0.54 points to trade at 8.83 at the close. Meanwhile, Credit Corp Group Ltd (ASX:CCP) added 5.96% or 1.08 points to end at 19.19 and Wisetech Global Ltd (ASX:WTC) was up 5.89% or 1.17 points to 21.02 in late trade.
The worst performers of the session were Ioof Holdings Ltd (ASX:IFL), which fell 7.78% or 0.41 points to trade at 4.86 at the close. Sandfire Resources NL (ASX:SFR) declined 5.76% or 0.320 points to end at 5.240 and Unibail Rodamco Westfield (ASX:URW) was down 5.26% or 0.21 points to 3.78.
Rising stocks outnumbered declining ones on the Sydney Stock Exchange by 693 to 527 and 371 ended unchanged.
The S&P/ASX 200 VIX, which measures the implied volatility of S&P/ASX 200 options, was down 2.98% to 18.600.
Gold Futures for August delivery was down 0.12% or 2.30 to $1951.10 a troy ounce. Elsewhere in commodities trading, Crude oil for delivery in September fell 0.36% or 0.15 to hit $41.12 a barrel, while the October Brent oil contract fell 0.25% or 0.11 to trade at $43.98 a barrel.
AUD/USD was down 0.62% to 0.7141, while AUD/JPY fell 0.32% to 75.15.
The US Dollar Index Futures was up 0.12% at 93.543.