Manufacturing Business Outlook Survey: Inventories: Future (increase vs decrease; diffusion index; percentage points; seasonally unadjusted) - 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 recent survey data about manufacturing firms in the Third Federal Reserve District, the seasonally unadjusted diffusion index for inventories (share of CEOs seeing a future increase minus share forecasting a decrease) was -3.6 in September 2025, compared to -23.1 in August.
Sample. There are 689 observations overall in the monthly series shown in the figure above. The time period covered by the series goes from May 1968 to September 2025.
History. Take a look at a few descriptive statistics calculated on the full sample: the diffusion index reached a minimum of -37.0 in February 1975; it hit a peak of 41.0 in March 1972; it had a mean value of -1.1.
Latest values
| Date | Value - Percentage points |
|---|---|
| 2025-07-31 | 3.3 |
| 2025-08-31 | -23.1 |
| 2025-09-30 | -3.6 |
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Series Metadata
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Description | Diffusion index for the question: Will inventories increase or decrease over the next six months? |
| Country | United States |
| Economic concept | Business survey response |
| Data type | Leading indicator of the business cycle |
| Deflation method | Not applicable |
| Seasonally adjusted | No |
| 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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