Manufacturing Business Outlook Survey: Shipments: 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 shipments (share of CEOs seeing a future increase minus share forecasting a decrease) was 33.3 in October 2026, versus 56.0 in the previous month.
Sample. There are 702 records in the monthly series shown in the graph above. The series covers the time period stretching from May 1968 to October 2026.
History. Here's a glimpse of some summary statistics we calculated on the full sample: the diffusion index hit a trough of -29.0 in December 1973; it achieved a maximum of 78.0 in May 1983; it averaged 35.3.
Latest values
| Date | Value - Percentage points |
|---|---|
| 2026-08-31 | 58.3000 |
| 2026-09-30 | 56.0000 |
| 2026-10-31 | 33.3000 |
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Series Metadata
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Description | Diffusion index for the question: Will shipments 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) |
Series in the same data set
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