Average Fed Mfg Survey: Capital expenditures: Future (increase vs decrease; diffusion index; percentage points; seasonally unadjusted) - United States - FSR - Monthly
This series is part of the dataset: Average Fed Mfg Survey (FetchSeries Research)
Download Full Dataset (.xlsx)Latest updates. Based on an average of regional Federal Reserve manufacturing surveys, the seasonally unadjusted diffusion index for capital expenditures was 17.1 (share of CEOs seeing a future increase minus share forecasting a decrease) in September 2026, compared to 19.5 in the previous month.
Sample. There are 268 records overall in the monthly time series shown in the chart above. The time range covered by the series is from June 2004 to September 2026.
History. Here are some summary statistics computed on the full sample: the diffusion index averaged 17.1; it reached a maximum of 37.3 in February 2018; it hit a minimum of -20.4 in February 2009.
Latest values
| Date | Value - Percentage points |
|---|---|
| 2026-07-31 | 13.9200 |
| 2026-08-31 | 19.4800 |
| 2026-09-30 | 17.1400 |
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Series Metadata
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Description | Diffusion index for the question: Will capital expenditures increase or decrease over the next six months? |
| Country | United States |
| Economic concept | Business survey response |
| Data type | Leading indicator of the business cycle |
| Seasonally adjusted | No |
| Deflation method | Not applicable |
| Rescaling | None |
| Measure type | Diffusion index (share of respondents reporting an increase minus share reporting a decrease) |
| Frequency | Monthly |
| Unit | Percentage points |
| Source | FetchSeries Research calculations on Federal Reserve data |
| Source type | Data research lab |
| Data licence | Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) + FetchSeries disclaimers |
| Other information | Arithmetic average across 5 regional Federal Reserve manufacturing surveys |
| FSR temporal aggregation code | LM01 |
Series in the same data set
Discover the other time series included in this data set.