12:26 PM EDT, 08/16/2024 (MT Newswires) -- The European stock markets closed mostly higher in Friday's trading session as the Stoxx Europe 600 gained 0.28%, the Swiss Market Index increased 0.32%, France's CAC rose 0.35%, Germany's DAX was up 0.80%, while the FTSE in London declined 0.43%.

The euro area registered a surplus of 22.3 billion euros ($24.5 billion) in trade in goods with the rest of the world in June, up from 18 billion euros a year earlier, according to Eurostat. Meanwhile, the surplus in the European Union was 20.9 billion euros in June, compared with 18.6 billion euros in June 2023.

UK Retail sales volume rose an estimated 0.5% in July after falling 0.9% in June, according to the Office for National Statistics. In the three months to July overall sales volume was up 1.1% compared with the three months to April.

In Germany, approximately 46.1 million people were employed in Q2, according to preliminary estimates from the Federal Statistical Office, which is a 0.1% increase from the previous quarter.

And in corporate news, shares of Bayer surged more than 11% in Frankfurt on Friday after a US appeals court ruled in favor of its Monsanto unit, which had been sued for not putting a cancer warning on the label of its Roundup weed killer product.

Shares of BioNTech fell 2% in Frankfurt after the German biotech firm and Pfizer said their phase 3 trial of a combined mRNA vaccine candidate targeting influenza and COVID-19 missed one of two primary immunogenicity targets.

Stellantis is facing a lawsuit by its shareholders in the US who blame the European automaker for hiding increasing inventories and other problems that led to unexpectedly low earnings as well as a decline in its stock price, Reuters reported Thursday. Stellantis was up nearly 2% in Milan.

And Deutsche Bank's settlement offer to shareholders, who sued the company for underpaying them following its Postbank acquisition, was rejected for being too low, Reuters reported Friday, citing a lawyer for the plaintiffs. Deutsche Bank stock in Frankfurt was up nearly 2%.