The lowest point of an economic cycle before recovery is called a trough.
A business cycle moves through alternating expansions and contractions in overall economic activity. The trough is the cycle’s lower turning point: production, employment, income, and spending have generally fallen to—or are near—their local minimum. The next phase, expansion, begins as activity rises from that low point toward a peak.
A trough is not necessarily the same as a recession. A recession is a period of significant economic decline, while the trough marks the point at which that decline ends and recovery begins. In the United States, the National Bureau of Economic Research’s Business Cycle Dating Committee identifies peaks and troughs using several indicators rather than GDP alone.
The term is paired with “peak,” the cycle’s high turning point. Economists do not expect business cycles to follow a perfectly regular schedule: shocks such as oil-price changes, financial crises, pandemics, or shifts in consumer demand can alter their timing and severity.