The ASX 200 closed the Christmas week up 29 points (+0.35%), ending the festivities at 8,251 points, though trade was down somewhat through the holiday open day.

This green close marks the third straight win for the Aussie markets around Christmas.

Discretionary enjoyed the biggest bump, closing up 0.92%. That winning sector was followed by Healthcare, which closed up 0.58%, and Financials, up 0.51%. Industrials and Staples also enjoyed healthy ticks, up +0.39% each.

Every sector ended this Friday in the green bar one – Utilites. The one down sector on the Australian share market closed the day down 0.35%.

Origin Energy (ASX:ORG) and APA Group (ASX:APA) were the leading causes of the struggles for Utilities today; Origin shed 0.3% to trade at $10.89 at close while natural gas and electricity seller APA sagged around the same to $28.82.

Paladin Energy (ASX:PDN) was among the worst hit today, down 3.21% to $7.55.

On the other end of the local bourse today, Bendigo Bank (ASX:BEN) bounced back from a Christmas outage that saw phone app and e-banking services knocked offline just before the big day. Bendigo closed up 0.3% to sell at $13.22 a share.

The best of the consumer bunch was Wesfarmers (ASX:WES) which moved 0.7% higher to $39.92. Super Retail Group (ASX:SUL) closed +1.23%.

All four big banks, perhaps unsurprisingly, also rose between 0.3% and 0.7%.

Trade was, as mentioned, thin – though no surprise with the holidays.

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