Global supply chains fail in stages, and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York now scores that stress with a single number. Its Global Supply Chain Pressure Index pulls together shipping costs and factory survey readings, and a notice dated November 6, 2025 said publication had moved to limited data while key source series stayed suspended.
Below, the whole supply chain explained in plain terms: what a link is, where pressure builds, how one break spreads, and why the main tracking index has been printing on partial data. Every figure traces to a primary source, mostly the New York Fed’s own research and index page. For related coverage, see Fed Holds Rates at 3.50–3.75 Percent as Committee Splits.
What counts as a link in the chain?
A supply chain is the path a product follows from raw input to finished sale. The New York Fed’s researchers give a plain example: final products produced by U.S. firms are frequently assembled from components and parts manufactured in Asia and Europe. Factories, ports, truck routes, and warehouses all count as links in that path.
Where does pressure build first?
Stress usually shows up in freight before it shows up on shelves. The researchers point to costs that cross borders: the Baltic Dry Index, which tracks the price of shipping raw materials such as coal or steel, and the Harpex index, which follows container charter rates for eight classes of all-container ships.
Chokepoints add a second layer of strain. The New York Fed’s team notes that problems can pile up inside one country, such as queues at ports or a shortage of truck drivers, or spill across borders, as with a shortage of containers. Either way, the cost of moving goods rises before most buyers notice anything on a shelf.
What does the pressure index actually measure?
The Global Supply Chain Pressure Index combines two data layers. One layer covers cross-border transport costs, including the shipping gauges above and airfreight price indices that the Bureau of Labor Statistics compiles for flights to and from Asia and Europe. The other layer draws on factory survey readings from seven economies, covering delivery times, order backlogs, and purchased stocks.
The researchers scrub demand out of the survey readings before using them. They adjust the supply side measures against a new orders component, which tracks customer demand, so the index reflects supply pressure rather than shopping appetite. A high reading means costs and delays sit above average. A low reading means they sit below.
How does one broken link spread to the rest?
A delay at one link raises delivery times down the line. Buyers respond by ordering more and ordering earlier, which builds backlogs at factories and drains stocks at warehouses. Those three signals, delivery times, backlogs, and stocks, are exactly what the New York Fed tracks, so a single port queue can move a global number.
Costs travel the same road. When freight rates jump, importers pay more before retailers do, and the strain works through contracts, quotes, and restocking cycles over weeks or months. The index is built to capture that pressure as it builds, not to date the moment a given shelf goes empty. We covered a connected angle in How Earnings Season Works — and What a 10-K Actually Tells You.
Why is the index running on partial data?
The New York Fed’s notice, dated November 6, 2025, said the index was being published with limited data because necessary inputs were suspended, and that regular publication would resume once the series returned. The notice does not name the suspended series and does not set a return date, so any list of missing inputs would run past the record.
The practical effect for readers is a gap. The index still prints, but it rests on fewer inputs than the design paper describes, so readings across that gap should not be joined into a clean trend line.
Conclusion: why the same chain holds and snaps
Supply chains hold until a cost, a queue, or a missing part crosses a threshold, and then the strain appears in data before it reaches a storefront. Transport costs lead, factory surveys confirm, and the New York Fed’s index rolls both into one reading. Watch the links rather than the headline, and the breaks become readable in stages.
