{
  "name": "MFG Calcs Forecasts: Six-Month Outlook for Every Live Series",
  "slug": "us-manufacturing-forecasts",
  "version": "1.0.0",
  "url": "https://www.mfgcalcs.com/signals/forecasts",
  "formula": "Each series is collapsed to one point per calendar month (mean), then projected 6 months with damped Holt-Winters exponential smoothing. Smoothing and damping parameters are selected only within an earlier tuning segment using walk-forward validation. A separate calibration segment supplies horizon-specific residual widths, and the reported MAPE comes from a final evaluation segment that was used by neither model selection nor interval calibration.",
  "gate": "Published only when a series has at least 12 monthly observations and the final untouched evaluation MAPE is at or below 35%. Series held back keep a stated reason (too short, error too high, or not a projectable time series).",
  "caveat": "STATISTICAL EXTRAPOLATION of each series' own shape, not a market or policy forecast. It knows nothing about pending Fed decisions, OPEC actions, or Federal Register notices. The interval is an empirical residual band, not a formal finite-sample conformal guarantee. Read the band, evaluation sample count, and error together with the central line.",
  "unit": "central path plus an 80% empirical residual band; change in percent; error as MAPE percent. Each horizon's width is derived from fixed-parameter walk-forward errors in a dedicated calibration segment that did not select the parameters and is separate from the final reported evaluation segment. Each row reports the method, per-horizon calibration counts, and half-widths. Short histories fall back to a clearly labelled Gaussian residual band.",
  "source": "U.S. federal open data (FRED, BLS, EIA, Census, IMF) plus derived MFG Calcs tariff Signals over USITC DataWeb (the Tariff Bill and per-family monthly import customs value).",
  "provenance": "Derived from public-domain U.S. government series. Redistributable.",
  "note": "Derived tariff Signals forecast genuine dollar flows; the effective tariff RATE is deliberately not forecast here (a policy-set rate is a step function, not a stochastic series). The ETI page and /api/eti-outlook carry a separately labeled CONDITIONAL drift path for that rate under policies already in force.",
  "license": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/",
  "attribution": "MFG Calcs (mfgcalcs.com), compiled from U.S. federal open data",
  "asOf": "2026-08"
}