Manufacturing Business Outlook Survey: Inventories: Current (increase vs decrease; diffusion index; percentage points; seasonally adjusted) - United States - Philly FED - Monthly
This series is part of the dataset: Manufacturing Business Outlook Survey (Philly FED)
Download Full Dataset (.xlsx)Latest updates. According to survey data about manufacturers based in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware, the seasonally adjusted diffusion index for inventories (share of CEOs seeing a recent increase minus share reporting a decrease) stood at 15.0 in September 2025, versus -6.2 in August 2025.
Sample. In this monthly time series, there are 689 data points overall. The series covers the time period stretching from May 1968 to September 2025.
History. Here's a glimpse of a few statistics computed on the whole sample: the diffusion index reached its lowest level of -52.2 in March 2009; it hit a maximum of 27.9 in March 1973; it was equal on average to -5.1.
Latest values
| Date | Value - Percentage points |
|---|---|
| 2025-07-31 | -1.3 |
| 2025-08-31 | -6.2 |
| 2025-09-30 | 15.0 |
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Series Metadata
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Description | Diffusion index for the question: Did inventories increase or decrease in the past month? |
| Country | United States |
| Economic concept | Business survey response |
| Data type | Coincident indicator of the business cycle |
| Deflation method | Not applicable |
| Seasonally adjusted | Yes |
| Rescaling | None |
| Frequency | Monthly |
| Unit | Percentage points |
| Source | Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia |
| Source type | Central bank |
| Data licence | Not copyrightable under U.S. law |
| Measure type | Diffusion index (share of respondents reporting an increase minus share reporting a decrease) |
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