Manufacturing Business Outlook Survey: Inventories: 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. According to recent survey data about manufacturing firms in the Third Federal Reserve District, the seasonally adjusted diffusion index for inventories (share of CEOs seeing a recent increase minus share reporting a decrease) was 5.4 in October 2025, compared to 15.0 in September.
Sample. This monthly series has 690 data points. The series covers the period stretching from May 1968 to October 2025.
History. Take a look at a few simple statistics we calculated on the whole sample: the diffusion index reached its lowest level of -52.2 in March 2009; it attained a maximum of 27.9 in March 1973; it had a mean value of -5.1.
Latest values
| Date | Value - Percentage points |
|---|---|
| 2025-08-31 | -6.2 |
| 2025-09-30 | 15.0 |
| 2025-10-31 | 5.4 |
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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 | 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) |