Each month the Philadelphia Fed releases the Manufacturing Business Outlook Survey, which contains a variety of information concerning business conditions.
As seen on the site:
The Business Outlook Survey is a monthly survey of manufacturers in the Third Federal Reserve District. Participants indicate the direction of change in overall business activity and in the various measures of activity at their plants: employment, working hours, new and unfilled orders, shipments, inventories, delivery times, prices paid, and prices received. The survey has been conducted each month since May 1968.
One component of this survey are diffusion indices for both “Prices Paid” and “Prices Received.” (for those unaware, this survey provides the following definition: “Diffusion indexes represent the percentage indicating an increase minus the percentage indicating a decrease.”)
Doug Short provides a monthly blog post concerning the Philadelphia Fed’s Manufacturing Business Outlook Survey. For reference purposes, here is a chart he has created that shows, from a long-term perspective, the “Prices Paid” and “Prices Received” diffusion indices (shown by the dots) and their 12-month moving averages (shown by the solid lines) from the December 2014 report:
(click on chart to enlarge image)
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StratX, LLC offers the above data and projections for informational purposes only, and does not necessarily agree with information provided by these outside parties.
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ProfitabilityIssues.com is published by StratX, LLC (stratxllc.com). StratX, LLC is a management consulting firm and strategic advisory that focuses on the analysis of current and future business conditions, and given these conditions, offers corporations and businesses advice, strategies, and actionable methods on how to optimally increase revenues and profitability.