US recession by end of 2026?

According to the latest prediction market data for the query “US recession by end of 2026?”, traders have formed a strong consensus.

Currently, No is dominating the market with an overwhelming 87% chance of winning. Yes follows in second place at 13%. The betting volume for this specific market has already reached $1.6M, reflecting intense industry interest.

To better assess where each potential outcome stands, the market can be segmented into three distinct trading tiers based on implied probability and contract pricing:

🥇 Tier 1: The Dominant Leader

• No (87%): Currently commanding the highest probability, No is heavily favored by the order book. Traders looking to back this outcome face a “Buy Yes” contract price of 87¢, signaling a high degree of market conviction.

🥈 Tier 2: The Primary Challengers

• Yes (13%): Positioned as the most viable alternative, Yes maintains a 13% chance of resolving true. Its “Buy Yes” shares currently trade at 13¢.

This market will resolve to “Yes” if either of the following conditions is met:

1. The seasonally adjusted annualized percent change in quarterly U.S. real GDP from the previous quarter is less than 0.0 for two consecutive quarters between Q2 2025 and Q4 2026 (inclusive), as reported by the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA).

2. The National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) publicly announces that a recession has occurred in the United States, at any point during 2025 or 2026, with the announcement made by the time the BEA releases the advance estimate for Q4 2026.

Otherwise, this market will resolve to "No".

Note that advance estimates will be considered. For example, if upon release, the advance estimate for Q3 2025 was negative, and the Q2 2025's most recent, up-to-date estimate was also negative, this market would resolve to "Yes". If on December 31, 2026 the latest estimate for quarterly GDP in Q3 2025 was negative, this market will stay open until the Advance estimate of Q4 2026 is published, at which point it will resolve to "Yes" if Q4 2026 was negative or if the NBER declares a recession by then.

The resolution source will be the official announcements from the NBER and the BEA’s estimate of seasonally adjusted annualized percent change in quarterly US real GDP from previous quarters as released by the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA), https://www.bea.gov/data/gdp/gross-domestic-product

While human consensus and speculative volume shape the broader prediction market, our quantitative algorithms offer a data-driven counter-perspective. By analyzing fundamental signals, underlying trends and historical distributions, our AI Valuation model calculates an independent “Fair Value” probability for each outcome.

Comparing this Fair Value against the current Trade Value uncovers major disparities — known as the Expected Value (EV) Gap. Contracts with a positive EV Gap represent statistically underpriced outcomes, whereas a negative EV Gap flags a potential market overreaction.

Top AI Alpha & Mispriced Arbitrage Opportunities

Based on the latest data model run, several key contracts stand out with significant deviations:

• The Most Overvalued Outcome No currently trades at 87%, but our AI places its Fair Value at just 73.2%. This creates a large negative EV Gap of -13.8%, suggesting the crowd may be overhyping this outcome and driving the premium too high.