Australia stocks higher at close of trade; S&P/ASX 200 up 0.84%

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

At the close in Sydney, the rose 0.84% to hit a new 6-months high.

The best performers of the session on the were G8 Education Ltd (ASX:), which rose 12.56% or 0.13 points to trade at 1.12 at the close. Meanwhile, Pointsbet Holdings Ltd (ASX:) added 7.69% or 0.07 points to end at 0.91 and Elders Ltd (ASX:) was up 4.22% or 0.31 points to 7.66 in late trade.

The worst performers of the session were Tabcorp Holdings Ltd (ASX:), which fell 5.25% or 0.05 points to trade at 0.86 at the close. Mesoblast Ltd (ASX:) declined 4.84% or 0.02 points to end at 0.29 and Zip Co Ltd (ASX:) was down 4.07% or 0.03 points to 0.59.

Rising stocks outnumbered declining ones on the Sydney Stock Exchange by 697 to 544 and 372 ended unchanged.

The , which measures the implied volatility of S&P/ASX 200 options, was down 1.65% to 10.01.

Gold Futures for February delivery was down 0.13% or 2.75 to $2,037.75 a troy ounce. Elsewhere in commodities trading, Crude oil for delivery in February rose 0.10% or 0.07 to hit $72.89 a barrel, while the February Brent oil contract rose 0.27% or 0.21 to trade at $78.16 a barrel.

AUD/USD was unchanged 0.30% to 0.67, while AUD/JPY rose 0.72% to 96.44.

The US Dollar Index Futures was down 0.04% at 102.14.