Australia stocks higher at close of trade; S&P/ASX 200 up 0.05%

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At the close in Sydney, the S&P/ASX 200 rose 0.05%.

The best performers of the session on the S&P/ASX 200 were Xero Ltd (ASX:XRO), which rose 10.66% or 8.38 points to trade at 87.00 at the close. Meanwhile, Appen Ltd (ASX:APX) added 9.05% or 0.22 points to end at 2.65 and EML Payments Ltd (ASX:EML) was up 5.62% or 0.03 points to 0.47 in late trade.

The worst performers of the session were St Barbara Ltd (ASX:SBM), which fell 3.60% or 0.02 points to trade at 0.54 at the close. Perpetual Ltd (ASX:PPT) declined 3.37% or 0.86 points to end at 24.65 and Breville Group Ltd (ASX:BRG) was down 3.09% or 0.63 points to 19.77.

Rising stocks outnumbered declining ones on the Sydney Stock Exchange by 663 to 559 and 405 ended unchanged.

The S&P/ASX 200 VIX, which measures the implied volatility of S&P/ASX 200 options, was down 2.33% to 11.46 a new 6-months low.

Gold Futures for April delivery was up 0.01% or 0.15 to $1,818.75 a troy ounce. Elsewhere in commodities trading, Crude oil for delivery in April rose 0.04% or 0.03 to hit $76.69 a barrel, while the May Brent oil contract rose 0.04% or 0.03 to trade at $82.69 a barrel.

AUD/USD was unchanged 0.39% to 0.66, while AUD/JPY fell 0.07% to 90.39.

The US Dollar Index Futures was down 0.10% at 105.53.