Manufacturing Business Outlook Survey: Unfilled orders: 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 unfilled orders (share of CEOs seeing a recent increase minus share reporting a decrease) stood at 12.0 in September 2026, compared to 12.5 in August 2026.
Sample. There are 701 observations overall in the monthly time series displayed in the graph above. The period covered by the series goes from May 1968 to September 2026.
History. Here's a glimpse of a few summary statistics we computed on the whole sample: the diffusion index was equal on average to -4.1; it peaked at 54.0 in March 1973; it recorded a bottom of -74.0 in December 1974.
Latest values
| Date | Value - Percentage points |
|---|---|
| 2026-07-31 | 13.8 |
| 2026-08-31 | 12.5 |
| 2026-09-30 | 12.0 |
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Series Metadata
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Description | Diffusion index for the question: Did unfilled orders 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) |
Series in the same data set
Discover the other time series included in this data set.