Manufacturing Business Outlook Survey: Shipments: Current (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. Based on firms' responses to the Manufacturing Business Outlook Survey carried out by the Philadelphia FED, the seasonally unadjusted diffusion index for shipments (share of CEOs seeing a recent increase minus share reporting a decrease) stood at 12.1 in October 2025, compared to 21.4 in the previous month.
Sample. This monthly time series has 690 observations in total. The time range covered by the series goes from May 1968 to October 2025.
History. Here’s a quick look at some descriptive statistics computed on the full sample: the diffusion index recorded a bottom of -71.4 in April 2020; it hit a peak of 65.0 in March 1973; it had a mean of 13.1.
Latest values
| Date | Value - Percentage points |
|---|---|
| 2025-08-31 | 11.5 |
| 2025-09-30 | 21.4 |
| 2025-10-31 | 12.1 |
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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 | 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) |