Investing.com – Australia stocks were higher after the close on Thursday, as gains in the IT, A-REITs and Consumer Discretionary sectors led shares higher.
At the close in Sydney, the S&P/ASX 200 added 0.77%.
The best performers of the session on the S&P/ASX 200 were Altium Ltd (ASX:ALU), which rose 28.91% or 14.82 points to trade at 66.08 at the close. Meanwhile, Appen Ltd (ASX:APX) added 10.17% or 0.03 points to end at 0.33 and Mesoblast Ltd (ASX:MSB) was up 9.09% or 0.03 points to 0.30 in late trade.
The worst performers of the session were Pro Medicus Ltd (ASX:PME), which fell 13.15% or 14.21 points to trade at 93.88 at the close. Idp Education Ltd (ASX:IEL) declined 8.58% or 1.88 points to end at 20.04 and Whitehaven Coal Ltd (ASX:WHC) was down 5.86% or 0.44 points to 7.07.
Rising stocks outnumbered declining ones on the Sydney Stock Exchange by 620 to 561 and 333 ended unchanged.
Shares in Altium Ltd (ASX:ALU) rose to all time highs; rising 28.91% or 14.82 to 66.08.
The S&P/ASX 200 VIX, which measures the implied volatility of S&P/ASX 200 options, was down 3.13% to 11.50.
Gold Futures for April delivery was down 0.01% or 0.25 to $2,004.05 a troy ounce. Elsewhere in commodities trading, Crude oil for delivery in March fell 0.43% or 0.33 to hit $76.31 a barrel, while the April Brent oil contract fell 0.38% or 0.31 to trade at $81.29 a barrel.
AUD/USD was unchanged 0.01% to 0.65, while AUD/JPY fell 0.40% to 97.39.
The US Dollar Index Futures was down 0.05% at 104.56.