According to Roberto Perli, an economist at Cornerstone Macro LLC in Washington, the time lag from inversion to recession has ranged from nine months for the 1981-82 downturn, to 34 months for the 2001 recession, with no discernible pattern.

The first lesson is to avoid relying on any single indicator. But even composite measures are, at the moment, attracting skepticism. Perli’s own model based on stocks, corporate-bond spreads and various portions of the Treasury yield curve warns of a 56 percent chance of recession within a year. And yet, he advised his clients in a note Tuesday that “these models are best ignored.”

That’s because Perli pins much of the recent market woes on angst over China, which he thinks will eventually ease as monetary policy in China adjusts and prevents a hard landing.

“The markets are expressing worries about the Chinese economy and its potential repercussions on the U.S. economy,” wrote Perli, a former Fed official. “There doesn’t seem to be much specific to the U.S. economy that seems likely to go seriously wrong over the next few quarters.”

While Perli’s optimism over China can be debated, it’s clearer that a potential recession in China is weighing on U.S. financial markets before it’s baked into the economic outlook. In other words, it’s a risk factor but not a hazard that has been struck.

As for the hard economic data, that may be slower than markets to reveal a deteriorating outlook, but less likely to give firms and families a head-fake on what’s coming.

Major Reversal

“You cannot get the equivalent of a thousand-point drop in the real economy in 24 hours, but you can in the financial markets,” said Bill Dunkelberg, chief economist for the National Federation of Independent Business. “So, if the model you’re looking at is dominated by financial numbers, there’s a much higher chance you can get a major reversal.”

It’s somewhat comforting, then, that the hard data are signaling a slowdown in growth, but no recession. Edgerton said JPMorgan’s “preferred model,” based on economic data, puts the probability of a recession in the next year at 41 percent.

That compares with the 25 percent median chance of a slump seen by economists in a Bloomberg survey earlier this month.