Investing.com – Australia equities were higher at the close on Monday, as gains in the Utilities, Healthcare and Gold sectors propelled shares higher.
At the close in Sydney, the S&P/ASX 200 added 0.04%.
The biggest gainers of the session on the S&P/ASX 200 were Blackmores Ltd (AX:BKL), which rose 3.93% or 7.000 points to trade at 185.000 at the close. St Barbara Ltd (AX:SBM) added 3.27% or 0.065 points to end at 2.050 and Mesoblast Ltd (AX:MSB) was up 3.25% or 0.080 points to 2.540 in late trade.
Biggest losers included Whitehaven Coal Ltd (AX:WHC), which lost 8.08% or 0.053 points to trade at 0.598 in late trade. Origin Energy Ltd (AX:ORG) declined 5.92% or 0.290 points to end at 4.610 and Select Harvests Ltd (AX:SHV) shed 5.00% or 0.200 points to 3.800.
Advancing stocks outnumbered falling ones by 518 to 412 and 304 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 1.87% to 17.285.
In commodities trading, Gold for June delivery was down 0.28% or 3.40 to $1220.10 a troy ounce. Meanwhile, Crude oil for delivery in May fell 1.11% or 0.41 to hit $36.38 a barrel, while the June Brent oil contract fell 0.93% or 0.36 to trade at $38.31 a barrel.
AUD/USD was down 0.53% to 0.7640, while AUD/JPY fell 0.70% to 85.10.
The US Dollar Index was up 0.03% at 94.61.