Hunch. On 29 October the European Central Bank said energy prices had already risen above its September forecast and that dearer borrowing was likely to weigh on growth.
The October to December market resolves on Eurostat's first estimate for the fourth quarter of 2026, due on 29 January 2027: YES if euro area growth against the quarter before is 0.0% or more, and NO if it is -0.1% or less. Later changes do not count, and Reuters and the Financial Times settle it if the Eurostat page is down.
We looked for cases where Eurostat published figures for the first three quarters of a year while one euro area country's quarterly growth swung by 5% or more, up and down. We found four such years, from 2007 to 2025, and add 2002, when Eurostat's table had no quarterly figures for Ireland. In four of the five, the year's first figure was no lower than three quarters showed.