Manufacturing Business Outlook Survey: Inventories: 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. According to recent survey data about manufacturing firms in the Third Federal Reserve District, the seasonally unadjusted diffusion index for inventories (share of CEOs seeing a future increase minus share forecasting a decrease) stood at 19.4 in November 2025, compared to 3.0 in the previous month.
Sample. In this monthly series, there are a total of 691 records. The span of time covered by the series is from May 1968 to November 2025.
History. Have a look at some descriptive statistics computed on the whole sample: the diffusion index averaged -1.0; it recorded its maximum of 41.0 in March 1972; it registered a minimum of -37.0 in February 1975.
Latest values
| Date | Value - Percentage points |
|---|---|
| 2025-09-30 | -3.6 |
| 2025-10-31 | 3.0 |
| 2025-11-30 | 19.4 |
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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 | 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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