I was surprised to see the recession contract all the way down at 28.7, but then I read the rules and saw that the definition is 2 successive quarters of negative real GDP growth over the 5 quarter window Q4 2007 - Q4 2008. As opposed to basing it on the NBER, which usually uses that definition but has leeway to call a recession under other circumstances.

It does specify the final numbers, rather than advance or preliminary, and I believe they tend to get revised downward (since they are cooked). The advance for Q1 was +0.6%, the preliminary will come on May 29th.

So the basic issue with this contract is: on the one hand, we're pretty obviously getting pulled into a housing / credit crunch driven recession. On the other hand, the GDP numbers are cooked (if nothing else because they are based on inflation numbers which are deeply cooked (deep-fried?)). So is this a buy at 28.7?

The dramatic fall over the past month seems like a rather extreme reaction to just having a Q1 advance number of +0.6%. So I'm inclined to buy.