Nonmanufacturing Business Outlook Survey: Inventories: Current (increase vs decrease; diffusion index; percentage points; seasonally unadjusted) - United States - Philly FED - Monthly
This series is part of the dataset: Nonmanufacturing Business Outlook Survey (Philly FED)
Download Full Dataset (.xlsx)Latest updates. According to survey data about nonmanufacturing firms collected by the Federal Reserve in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware, the seasonally unadjusted diffusion index for inventories (share of CEOs seeing a recent increase minus share reporting a decrease) was -8.1 in September 2026, compared to -5.9 in August.
Sample. In the monthly series shown in the plot, there are 187 observations overall. The series covers the time period going from March 2011 to September 2026.
History. Here's a glimpse of a few summary statistics we computed on the entire sample: the diffusion index averaged 1.8; it peaked at 17.6 in October 2014; it recorded a minimum of -11.1 in August 2023.
Latest values
| Date | Value - Percentage points |
|---|---|
| 2026-07-31 | -2.60000 |
| 2026-08-31 | -5.90000 |
| 2026-09-30 | -8.10000 |
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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 | 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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