Australia stocks higher at close of trade; S&P/ASX 200 up 0.78%

Investing.com – Australia stocks were higher after the close on Tuesday, as gains in the Industrials, IT and A-REITs sectors led shares higher.

At the close in Sydney, the S&P/ASX 200 gained 0.78%.

The best performers of the session on the S&P/ASX 200 were Mesoblast Ltd (ASX:MSB), which rose 6.01% or 0.11 points to trade at 1.94 at the close. Meanwhile, Pointsbet Holdings Ltd (ASX:PBH) added 4.81% or 0.05 points to end at 0.98 and Westgold Resources Ltd (ASX:WGX) was up 4.30% or 0.13 points to 3.15 in late trade.

The worst performers of the session were Appen Ltd (ASX:APX), which fell 3.59% or 0.08 points to trade at 2.15 at the close. Nickel Mines Ltd (ASX:NIC) declined 3.41% or 0.03 points to end at 0.85 and Whitehaven Coal Ltd (ASX:WHC) was down 2.84% or 0.19 points to 6.34.

Rising stocks outnumbered declining ones on the Sydney Stock Exchange by 524 to 510 and 377 ended unchanged.

Shares in Mesoblast Ltd (ASX:MSB) rose to 3-years highs; gaining 6.01% or 0.11 to 1.94.

The S&P/ASX 200 VIX, which measures the implied volatility of S&P/ASX 200 options, was down 0.65% to 10.16.

Gold Futures for February delivery was up 0.01% or 0.14 to $2,670.14 a troy ounce. Elsewhere in commodities trading, Crude oil for delivery in January fell 0.54% or 0.38 to hit $70.33 a barrel, while the February Brent oil contract rose 0.04% or 0.03 to trade at $73.94 a barrel.

AUD/USD was unchanged 0.22% to 0.64, while AUD/JPY fell 0.24% to 97.94.

The US Dollar Index Futures was up 0.03% at 106.59.