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 survey data about manufacturers collected by the Federal Reserve in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware, the seasonally unadjusted diffusion index for inventories (share of CEOs seeing a future increase minus share forecasting a decrease) stood at 8.0 in September 2026, compared to 4.2 in the previous month.
Sample. In this monthly time series, there are 701 observations. The period covered by the series goes from May 1968 to September 2026.
History. Have a look at some statistics we calculated on the full sample: the diffusion index achieved a maximum of 41.0 in March 1972; it reached a minimum of -37.0 in February 1975; it was equal on average to -0.9.
Latest values
| Date | Value - Percentage points |
|---|---|
| 2026-07-31 | 6.90000 |
| 2026-08-31 | 4.20000 |
| 2026-09-30 | 8.00000 |
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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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