[Johnny555]

Recession is a loosely defined economic term where the exact definition depends on who's reporting it, traditionally, it's meant 2 quarters of decline in GDP growth. But now:

The NBER defines a recession as a significant decline in economic activity spread across the economy, lasting more than a few months, normally visible in real GDP, real income, employment, industrial production, and wholesale-retail sales

https://www.investopedia.com/terms/r/recession.asp

But recession is a macroeconomic term that may not reflect the actual impact on consumers -- conusumers could be suffering through an economic downturn that's not technically a "recession".

[tootie]

Yeah, recession start and ends can only really be determined accurately in retrospect. And like you said it's marked by the decline meaning it starts when growth hits its high point and ends when it hits a low point. In terms "feeling" like a recession, it'll be more like midway through the descent until midway into a recovery. A stock market crash is frequently a leading indicator of a GDP recession though not always. We could be seeing the early signs of recession for the past six months, but we won't really know for a while.