12:22 PM EDT, 05/10/2024 (MT Newswires) -- The European stock markets closed higher in Friday trading, with the Stoxx Europe 600 up 0.77%, the Swiss Market Index climbing 1.31%, France's CAC gaining 0.38%, the FTSE up 0.63%, and Germany's DAX closing 0.38% higher.

In the UK, gross domestic product increased an estimated 0.6% in Q1 following declines of 0.3% in Q4 and 0.1% in Q3, according to the Office for National Statistics. Compared with the same quarter a year ago, GDP increased an estimated 0.2%.

In Germany, price-adjusted production in the manufacturing sector declined 0.4% in March from February, according to preliminary information from the Federal Statistical Office. Compared with March 2023, production dropped 3.3%.

In Italy, the seasonally adjusted industrial production index decreased 0.5% in March compared with the previous month, according to the Italian National Institute of Statistics. Compared with March 2023, which had two more calendar working days than March of 2024, industrial production index decreased 3.5%.

And in corporate news, UK financial services company Barclays ( JJCTF ) Chief Executive Coimbatore Sundararajan Venkatakrishnan said Thursday that recent gains in the bank's share prices are "early evidence" that investors back a strategy unveiled in February to boost investments in the UK, among other initiatives, Bloomberg reported.

Spanish financial services firm Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria's ( BBVA ) hostile takeover bid for Banco de Sabadell "violates a rule governing how companies must make such approaches," Sabadell said in a regulatory filing. The documents provided by BBVA and the investor meeting it organized "introduce incomplete information that may affect the market," Sabadell said.

UK-based mining company Rio Tinto (RIO) considered bidding for fellow British miner Anglo American even as its larger rival BHP (BHP) attempted to buy out the mining company, the Australian Financial Review reported Friday, citing unnamed sources. Shares of Anglo American closed 1.4% higher on the FTSE in London.