April 21 (Reuters) - Australian shares closed higher on Thursday for a fifth straight session, as upbeat quarterly earnings and production reports helped overshadow losses in heavyweight BHP Group's shares and the technology sector.

The S&P/ASX 200 index ended 0.31% higher at 7,592.8.

Financials jumped 1.1% and were among the top gainers on the benchmark. The "Big Four" lenders climbed between 0.5% and 1.2%.

Investment manger Challenger Ltd jumped about 11% to hit a two-year high and top the benchmark after saying its annual net profit would be towards the upper end of the forecast range of A$430 million ($320.09 million) to A$480 million.

"People may be moving a little bit of money across from some of the resources and commodity stocks to financials, hoping that things go better in that department," said Brad Smoling, managing director at Smoling Stockbroking.

However, "it's going to be a very fine line between financials making money as a result of rising rates and losing money as a result of mortgage rates going too high," he added.

Local energy stocks jumped 1.2% on firm oil prices.

Viva Energy soared as much as 5.7% to a record high after the fuel supplier said its group volumes for first quarter were up by 9%

Miners slipped nearly 2%, capping gains on the index, with global miner BHP tumbling nearly 3% after its iron ore production for the March quarter was lower than expected.

The miner also cut its annual copper production view due to blockades at its Escondida project in Chile.

Technology stocks slipped nearly 3%, tracking overnight losses on its Wall Street peers.

In New Zealand, the benchmark S&P/NZX 50 index closed 0.1% lower at 11,954.0. ($1 = 1.3434 Australian dollars) (Reporting By Navya Mittal in Bengaluru; editing by Uttaresh.V)