Australia stocks higher at close of trade; S&P/ASX 200 up 0.60%

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

At the close in Sydney, the gained 0.60% to hit a new 1-month high.

The best performers of the session on the were Pointsbet Holdings Ltd (ASX:), which rose 21.61% or 0.29 points to trade at 1.66 at the close. Meanwhile, Mesoblast Ltd (ASX:) added 6.82% or 0.08 points to end at 1.17 and Abacus Property Group (ASX:) was up 5.81% or 0.15 points to 2.73 in late trade.

The worst performers of the session were Appen Ltd (ASX:), which fell 5.63% or 0.16 points to trade at 2.68 at the close. Iluka Resources Ltd (ASX:) declined 4.27% or 0.51 points to end at 11.43 and Ramelius Resources Ltd (ASX:) was down 3.79% or 0.06 points to 1.39.

Falling stocks outnumbered advancing ones on the Sydney Stock Exchange by 723 to 603 and 451 ended unchanged.

The , which measures the implied volatility of S&P/ASX 200 options, was up 14.13% to 11.98.

Gold Futures for August delivery was down 0.43% or 8.45 to $1,962.75 a troy ounce. Elsewhere in commodities trading, Crude oil for delivery in August fell 0.14% or 0.10 to hit $71.83 a barrel, while the August Brent oil contract fell 0.08% or 0.06 to trade at $76.55 a barrel.

AUD/USD was unchanged 0.37% to 0.69, while AUD/JPY fell 0.58% to 97.25.

The US Dollar Index Futures was up 0.23% at 102.07.