Fifth District Survey of Manufacturing Activity: Inventories of finished goods: Current (increase vs decrease; diffusion index; percentage points; seasonally adjusted) - 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. Based on firms' responses to the Fifth District Survey of Manufacturing Activity carried out by the Richmond FED, the seasonally adjusted diffusion index for inventories of finished goods (share of CEOs seeing a recent increase minus share reporting a decrease) stood at 11.0 in September 2025, compared to 16.0 in August 2025.
Sample. In this monthly series, there are a total of 259 observations. The time period covered by the series is from January 1997 to September 2025.
History. Here's a peek at a few descriptive statistics calculated on the full sample: the diffusion index had a mean of 17.5; it attained a maximum of 47.0 in September 2000; it reached its lowest level of -21.0 in January 2021.
Latest values
| Date | Value - Percentage points |
|---|---|
| 2025-07-31 | 16.0 |
| 2025-08-31 | 16.0 |
| 2025-09-30 | 11.0 |
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Series Metadata
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Description | Diffusion index for the question: Did finished goods inventories 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 | Yes |
| 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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