Investing.com – Australia equities were higher at the close on Friday, as gains in the Financials, Industrials and IT sectors propelled shares higher.
At the close in Sydney, the S&P/ASX 200 gained 0.39%.
The biggest gainers of the session on the S&P/ASX 200 were Aconex Ltd (AX:ACX), which rose 9.20% or 0.590 points to trade at 7.000 at the close. CSR Ltd (AX:CSR) added 6.85% or 0.235 points to end at 3.665 and BT Investment Management Ltd (AX:BTT) was up 4.02% or 0.360 points to 9.310 in late trade.
Biggest losers included St Barbara Ltd (AX:SBM), which lost 11.86% or 0.370 points to trade at 2.750 in late trade. Mesoblast Ltd (AX:MSB) declined 6.17% or 0.070 points to end at 1.065 and Covermore Fpo (AX:CVO) shed 5.74% or 0.078 points to 1.272.
Declining stocks outnumbered rising ones by 490 to 480 and 374 ended unchanged on the Sydney Stock Exchange.
The S&P/ASX 200 VIX, which measures the implied volatility of S&P/ASX 200 options, was down 2.88% to 19.718.
In commodities trading, Gold for August delivery was down 0.94% or 12.25 to $1286.15 a troy ounce. Meanwhile, Crude oil for delivery in July rose 0.93% or 0.43 to hit $46.64 a barrel, while the August Brent oil contract rose 1.38% or 0.65 to trade at $47.84 a barrel.
AUD/USD was up 0.35% to 0.7389, while AUD/JPY rose 0.40% to 77.09.
The US Dollar Index was down 0.17% at 94.61.