Manufacturing Business Outlook Survey: Unfilled orders: 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. Based on firms' responses to the Manufacturing Business Outlook Survey carried out by the Philadelphia FED, the seasonally unadjusted diffusion index for unfilled orders (share of CEOs seeing a future increase minus share forecasting a decrease) was 12.0 in September 2026, compared to 0.0 in August.
Sample. There are 701 observations overall in the monthly time series shown in the figure above. The time span covered by the series stretches from May 1968 to September 2026.
History. Here are some descriptive statistics we computed on the full sample: the diffusion index registered a minimum of -40.4 in August 2022; it reached a maximum of 55.0 in June 1983; it had an average value of 8.8.
Latest values
| Date | Value - Percentage points |
|---|---|
| 2026-07-31 | 17.2000 |
| 2026-08-31 | 0 |
| 2026-09-30 | 12.0000 |
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Series Metadata
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Description | Diffusion index for the question: Will unfilled orders 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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