Empire State Manufacturing Survey: Capital expenditures: Future (increase vs decrease; diffusion index; percentage points; seasonally unadjusted) - United States - NY FED - Monthly
This series is part of the dataset: Empire State Manufacturing Survey (NY FED)
Download Full Dataset (.xlsx)Latest updates. Based on manufacturing firms' responses to the Empire State Survey carried out by the New York FED, the seasonally unadjusted diffusion index for capital expenditures (share of CEOs seeing a future increase minus share forecasting a decrease) was 21.6 in March 2026, compared to 18.2 in the previous month.
Sample. In this monthly series, there are 297 records in total. The period covered by the series goes from July 2001 to March 2026.
History. Here's a glimpse of some descriptive statistics we calculated on the entire sample: the diffusion index achieved a maximum of 42.3 in December 2003; it hit a minimum of -19.1 in March 2009; it had a mean value of 18.7.
Latest values
| Date | Value - Percentage points |
|---|---|
| 2026-01-31 | 10.3 |
| 2026-02-28 | 18.2 |
| 2026-03-31 | 21.6 |
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Series Metadata
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Description | Diffusion index for the question: Will capital expenditures 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 New York |
| Source type | Central bank |
| Data licence | Free use subject to conditions |
| Measure type | Diffusion index (share of respondents reporting an increase minus share reporting a decrease) |
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