Average Fed Mfg Survey: General business activity: 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 general business activity stood at 21.6 (share of CEOs seeing a future increase minus share forecasting a decrease) in September 2026, compared to 30.4 in August.
Sample. There are 268 observations overall in the monthly time series presented in the chart above. The series covers the time range extending from June 2004 to September 2026.
History. Here’s a quick look at some statistics we computed on the entire sample: the diffusion index averaged 24.4; it reached its lowest level of -22.5 in October 2022; it reached its maximum of 53.6 in January 2017.
Latest values
| Date | Value - Percentage points |
|---|---|
| 2026-07-31 | 21.5750 |
| 2026-08-31 | 30.4250 |
| 2026-09-30 | 21.6500 |
Suggestion. A plus of our web site is that we publish complete metadata. Find them below to delve deeper into the properties of the indicators that you use in your research.
Not for investment purposes. Content collected and published on FetchSeries is not suitable for investment purposes or as a basis for financial-decision making. Users should ask for professional advice and perform independent analysis before taking any financial risk.
Series Metadata
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Description | Diffusion index for the question: Will general business activity 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 4 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.