Manufacturing Business Outlook Survey: Shipments: 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 shipments (share of CEOs seeing a recent increase minus share reporting a decrease) was 33.7 in July 2026, versus 14.9 in June.
Sample. There are 699 observations in the monthly series shown in the chart above. The series covers the period stretching from May 1968 to July 2026.
History. Here are a few descriptive statistics calculated on the whole sample: the diffusion index reached its lowest level of -74.2 in April 2020; it hit a maximum of 48.3 in March 1973; it had an average value of 13.0.
Latest values
| Date | Value - Percentage points |
|---|---|
| 2026-05-31 | 4.9 |
| 2026-06-30 | 14.9 |
| 2026-07-31 | 33.7 |
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Series Metadata
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Description | Diffusion index for the question: Did shipments 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) |
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