Manufacturing Business Outlook Survey: Inventories: Future (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 future increase minus share forecasting a decrease) stood at 15.6 in November 2025, compared to 0.9 in October 2025.
Sample. This monthly series has a total of 691 observations. The time range covered by the series is from May 1968 to November 2025.
History. Here's a peek at some descriptive statistics we calculated on the whole sample: the diffusion index had an average value of -1.0; it reached its minimum of -41.8 in December 2008; it reached its highest level of 41.0 in September 1983.
Latest values
| Date | Value - Percentage points |
|---|---|
| 2025-09-30 | -3.0 |
| 2025-10-31 | 0.9 |
| 2025-11-30 | 15.6 |
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Series Metadata
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Description | Diffusion index for the question: Will inventories 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 | 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) |
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