Fifth District Survey of Manufacturing Activity: Capital expenditures: Current (increase vs decrease; diffusion index; percentage points; seasonally unadjusted) - United States - Richmond FED - Monthly
This series is part of the dataset: Fifth District Survey of Manufacturing Activity (Richmond FED)
Download Full Dataset (.xlsx)Latest updates. According to survey data about manufacturers collected by the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, the seasonally unadjusted diffusion index for capital expenditures (share of CEOs seeing a recent increase minus share reporting a decrease) stood at -6.0 in September 2026, compared to -7.0 in August 2026.
Sample. There are 190 observations in the monthly time series presented in the chart above. The time period covered by the series extends from December 2010 to September 2026.
History. Have a look at some statistics we calculated on the entire sample: the diffusion index reached its lowest level of -29.0 in May 2020; it reached a maximum of 31.0 in April 2018; it was equal on average to 8.2.
Latest values
| Date | Value - Percentage points |
|---|---|
| 2026-07-31 | 0 |
| 2026-08-31 | -7.00000 |
| 2026-09-30 | -6.00000 |
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Series Metadata
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Description | Diffusion index for the question: Did capital expenditures increase or decrease in the past month? |
| Country | United States |
| Economic concept | Business survey response |
| Data type | Coincident indicator of the business cycle |
| Deflation method | Not applicable |
| Seasonally adjusted | No |
| Rescaling | None |
| Frequency | Monthly |
| Unit | Percentage points |
| Source | Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond |
| Source type | Central bank |
| Data licence | Not copyrightable under U.S. law |
| Measure type | Diffusion index (share of respondents reporting an increase minus share reporting a decrease) |
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