Manufacturing Business Outlook Survey: Shipments: 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. Based on a sample of manufacturing firms surveyd by the FED, the seasonally adjusted diffusion index for shipments (share of CEOs seeing a recent increase minus share reporting a decrease) was 26.1 in September 2025, compared to 4.5 in the previous month.
Sample. In the monthly time series presented in the plot, there are 689 observations. The time span covered by the series extends from May 1968 to September 2025.
History. Check out a few descriptive statistics we calculated on the entire sample: the diffusion index reached its highest level of 48.3 in March 1973; it hit a minimum of -74.8 in April 2020; it was equal on average to 13.0.
Latest values
| Date | Value - Percentage points |
|---|---|
| 2025-07-31 | 23.7 |
| 2025-08-31 | 4.5 |
| 2025-09-30 | 26.1 |
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Series Metadata
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Description | Diffusion index for the question: Did shipments 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) |
Series in the same data set
Discover the other time series included in this data set.