Is the UK in a recession?

There is a lot of talk around the fact that the UK might be heading into a recession. The UK's Gross Domestic Product (GDP) which measures the output of the UK economy shrank 0.5% in the third quarter. This was a greater contraction than what economists had predicted. We still haven't had two consecutive quarters of economic contraction, so “technically” we are not yet in a recession.
However, government announcements are lagging indicators in determining whether we are in a recession or not. It is a lagging indicator in that the contraction had actually taken place before the announcement.
The stock market indexes are leading indicators when it comes to showing the health of an economy or whether an economy is in a recession. The stock market is “forward thinking” and the future health of the economy of a company is usually factored into the value. The stock market points to the fact that it is very likely we are already in a recession. However the good news is that share prices tend to rise during the second part of a recession. They fall during the months leading into a recession and the earlier part of a recession. Why do they rise during the second part of a recession? They rise because they economy would have started to expand (meaning business would be better) before the announcement is made by government.
Although I haven’t got any official figures to show how the UK stock market has performed during UK recessions, the table below shows the performance of the S&P during the last 5 US recessions.