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 a sample of manufacturing firms surveyd by the FED, the seasonally unadjusted diffusion index for shipments (share of CEOs seeing a recent increase minus share reporting a decrease) stood at 14.3 in January 2026, compared to -15.4 in December 2025.
Sample. There are 693 observations in the monthly time series presented in the figure above. The period covered by the series stretches from May 1968 to January 2026.
History. Here are some descriptive statistics calculated on the whole sample: the diffusion index reached a trough of -71.4 in April 2020; it achieved a maximum of 65.0 in March 1973; it had a mean value of 13.0.
Latest values
| Date | Value - Percentage points |
|---|---|
| 2025-11-30 | -19.4 |
| 2025-12-31 | -15.4 |
| 2026-01-31 | 14.3 |
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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) |
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