The three
Cadence places each market on two measures from the same harmonised survey, each read against that market’s own long-run average: how confident households are, and whether they still intend to make a large purchase. Three markets changed quadrant this quarter.
| Market | From | To |
|---|---|---|
| Ireland | Below par, deferring | Below par, holding |
| Sweden | At par, deferring | At par, holding |
| France | Below par, holding | Below par, deferring |
Ireland and Sweden moved from deferring a large purchase to holding. France moved the other way. The eight remaining markets are where they were last quarter.
Three movements in a set of eleven is the whole quarterly change. Everything else is a market being where it already was.
Why a single quarter cannot tell you this
A market’s position on its own is ambiguous. France and Germany both read below par and deferring right now, which makes them look identical — but France arrived there this quarter and Germany has been there almost continuously. Same label, and one of them is news.
Separating the two requires the history, so Cadence reconstructs every quarter back to mid-2024 on the engine that writes today’s reports: nine quarters, eleven markets, 88 possible transitions. Thirty-four of those are changes. Fourteen of the thirty-four can be shown to have held for at least one more quarter; three are this quarter’s own moves, which there is no later quarter to test yet.
The movement is not evenly spread. Italy and Poland have held one position for all nine quarters. The Netherlands has changed six times.
What the label hides
The quadrant is a name on two continuous measures, and a market can drift a long way inside one without the name changing — or cross a boundary on a movement that is barely there. Cadence keeps the underlying gaps beneath the label for exactly that reason, and a position without its history is the half of the picture that looks most like an answer.
Where a market sits is a fact. Whether it just got there is the one that changes a plan.
What this does not establish
Both axes are stated measures from the same survey: this is a reconstruction of what households reported, not of what they bought. A change of position is a description, not an explanation, and nothing here says what caused one. It is also not a forecast — we pre-registered five tests of whether our signals predict demand and published all five results; none cleared the bar.
Source: Eurostat consumer confidence and major-purchase intent, each against the market’s own long-run mean, reconstructed across nine quarters. A read, not a forecast.