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 based in the Fifth District, the seasonally unadjusted diffusion index for capital expenditures (share of CEOs seeing a recent increase minus share reporting a decrease) was -12.0 in September 2025, versus -22.0 in August 2025.
Sample. There are 136 records overall in the monthly time series presented in the graph above. The series covers the period extending from February 2010 to September 2025.
History. Here's a peek at a few summary statistics we computed on the full sample: the diffusion index reached its minimum of -29.0 in May 2020; it recorded a maximum of 31.0 in April 2018; it had a mean of 9.4.
Latest values
| Date | Value - Percentage points |
|---|---|
| 2025-07-31 | -17.0 |
| 2025-08-31 | -22.0 |
| 2025-09-30 | -12.0 |
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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) |
Series in the same data set
Discover the other time series included in this data set.