ASX closed green; Envirosuite rallied on Aeroqual deal; NIB surged on AGM and strong growth.

The Australian market continued a green streak into Thursday, closing the session 0.48% higher at 7428 points as a surge in tech and financial stocks led gains on the key index. Financials were boosted by NIB surging 5.78% on the back of strong quarterly earrings results.

Australian retail sales data for the quarter experienced the biggest tumble on record, dropping 4.4% for the September quarter as east coast lockdowns had a drastic impact on Aussie retail sales.

The tech sector surged in afternoon trade to close the session more than 1% higher, as strong gains for Appen, Megaport and Altium offset a more than 4.3% loss for Tyro Payments.

Bitcoin is trading 0.76% lower over the last 24-hours at US$62,597.75 at 4:30pm AEDT.

Australian-based environmental tech company Envirosuite rallied today after announcing a new strategic partnership with Aeroqual, a global leader in air quality monitoring tech. Under the deal, Envirosuite and Aeroqual will join their respective environmental technologies to focus on driving revenue and customer transactions across a number of industries including mining, waste, and industrial sectors in North America.

Making headlines, Australian health care fund NIB jumped 5.78% today after releasing its AGM update and first quarter performance results. For the quarter, NIB reported group premium income growth of 8.5% to $669.5m, total group revenue of $2.6bn, up 2.9%, and ahri policyholder growth of 0.6% to 3,829.

And Qantas engineers have taken to using brooms and stomping their feet to scare off venomous snakes who have taken over grounded A380 planes in California?s Mojave desert, as the airline prepares to resume A380 flights back to Australia from the states by Christmas.