Australia stocks higher at close of trade; S&P/ASX 200 up 1.25%

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At the close in Sydney, the S&P/ASX 200 rose 1.25%.

The best performers of the session on the S&P/ASX 200 were Zip Co Ltd (ASX:Z1P), which rose 10.90% or 0.52 points to trade at 5.29 at the close. Meanwhile, Mesoblast Ltd (ASX:MSB) added 10.00% or 0.160 points to end at 1.760 and Kogan.com Ltd (ASX:KGN) was up 6.17% or 0.47 points to 8.09 in late trade.

The worst performers of the session were Steadfast Group Ltd (ASX:SDF), which fell 4.01% or 0.20 points to trade at 4.79 at the close. Polynovo Ltd (ASX:PNV) declined 2.71% or 0.040 points to end at 1.435 and Orora Ltd (ASX:ORA) was down 2.31% or 0.08 points to 3.38.

Rising stocks outnumbered declining ones on the Sydney Stock Exchange by 928 to 466 and 367 ended unchanged.

The S&P/ASX 200 VIX, which measures the implied volatility of S&P/ASX 200 options, was up 5.28% to 13.981.

Gold Futures for February delivery was up 0.38% or 6.75 to $1791.45 a troy ounce. Elsewhere in commodities trading, Crude oil for delivery in January fell 0.93% or 0.67 to hit $71.38 a barrel, while the February Brent oil contract fell 0.70% or 0.53 to trade at $74.91 a barrel.

AUD/USD was up 0.18% to 0.7131, while AUD/JPY fell 0.01% to 80.83.

The US Dollar Index Futures was down 0.22% at 96.160.