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June 1 (Reuters) - Australian shares ended higher on Thursday after a rise in healthcare and utility stocks outweighed declines in commodity-driven and consumer stocks.
The S&P/ASX 200 index .AXJO rose 0.2 percent to 5,738.10.
Healthcare and utilities stocks posted solid gains, tracking the performance of their U.S. peers. .N
The biggest Australian healthcare firms, CSL Ltd CSL.AX and Resmed Inc RMD.AX , added 1.6 percent and 0.8 percent respectively. Both have substantial U.S. operations.
AGL Energy AGL.AX and APA Group APA.AX led utilities, posting gains of 2.4 percent and 3 percent, respectively.
Miners Rio Tinto (LON:RIO) RIO.AX and BHP BHP.AX , which fell 1.7 percent and 0.7 percent respectively, contributed to much of the benchmark's losses.
But Thursday's biggest blow came from retailing major Wesfarmers WES.AX , which plunged 3.1 percent to its lowest since early-February. It fell after a Morgan Stanley (NYSE:MS) downgrade. Zealand's benchmark S&P/NZX 50 index .NZ50 ended 0.4 percent, or 32 points, higher at 7450.90.
Telcos and industrials drove up the benchmark, with Spark New Zealand SPK.NZ and Air New Zealand AIR.NZ up nearly 2 percent and 5.2 percent respectively.