Nonmanufacturing Business Outlook Survey: Equipment and software expenditures: Current (increase vs decrease; diffusion index; percentage points; seasonally adjusted) - United States - Philly FED - Monthly
This series is part of the dataset: Nonmanufacturing Business Outlook Survey (Philly FED)
Download Full Dataset (.xlsx)Latest updates. According to survey data about nonmanufacturing firms collected by the Federal Reserve in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware, the seasonally adjusted diffusion index for equipment and software expenditures (share of CEOs seeing a recent increase minus share reporting a decrease) was 33.0 in September 2026, versus 8.8 in August 2026.
Sample. There are 187 observations in the monthly series shown in the figure above. The series covers the time period going from March 2011 to September 2026.
History. Here's a snapshot of a few summary statistics we computed on the full sample: the diffusion index hit a trough of -38.5 in April 2020; it hit a maximum of 41.7 in November 2021; it averaged 20.3.
Latest values
| Date | Value - Percentage points |
|---|---|
| 2026-07-31 | 30.8000 |
| 2026-08-31 | 8.80000 |
| 2026-09-30 | 33.0000 |
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Series Metadata
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Description | Diffusion index for the question: Did capital expenditures on equipment and software 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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