12:21 PM EDT, 06/20/2024 (MT Newswires) -- European stock markets closed higher in Thursday trading as the Stoxx Europe 600 rose 0.88%, the Swiss Market Index gained 0.56%, France's CAC climbed 1.37%, the FTSE in London advanced 0.79%, and Germany's DAX added 0.95%.

The European Commission's Directorate-General Economic and Financial Affair's flash estimate of the consumer confidence indicator rose 0.3 percentage points in June in the EU to minus 12.9 and in the euro area to minus 14.

In Germany, producer prices for industrial products declined 2.2% in May from a year earlier and were unchanged from April, according to the German Federal Statistical Office.

In Italy, the seasonally adjusted construction index increased 2.3% in April from March, and 10.5% from a year earlier, according to the Italian National Institute of Statistics. In the three-month period ended April, the seasonally adjusted index fell 1.2% from the previous three-month period.

In Switzerland, the construction price index from October to April rose 0.4% to 115 on higher building and civil engineering costs, according to the Swiss Federal Statistical Office. Construction prices gained 1% from a year earlier.

In corporate news, shares of Ocado Group tumbled 12% in London as the online supermarket's Canadian partner Sobeys said it paused the opening of a robotic warehouse in Vancouver. Sobeys also said it is ending its mutual exclusivity agreement with Ocado.

Deutsche Bank reduced spending on consultants in its private banking business by 70% to make the division more profitable, the Financial Times reported, quoting unit head Claudio de Sanctis.

Natwest Group agreed to acquire Sainsbury's Bank's retail banking assets and liabilities, including 2.5 billion pounds ($3.17 billion) of gross customer assets, consisting of 1.4 billion pounds of unsecured personal loans and 1.1 billion pounds of credit card balances. The accord also includes customer deposits worth 2.6 billion pounds.