Fifth District Survey of Manufacturing Activity: Inventories of finished goods: Future (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. Based on a sample of manufacturing firms surveyd by the FED, the seasonally unadjusted diffusion index for inventories of finished goods (share of CEOs seeing a future increase minus share forecasting a decrease) stood at 5.0 in September 2025, compared to 9.0 in August 2025.
Sample. There are 259 observations in the monthly series displayed in the figure above. The period covered by the series is from January 1997 to September 2025.
History. Take a look at a few summary statistics we calculated on the full sample: the diffusion index had a mean of -3.3; it hit a minimum of -44.0 in August 2000; it recorded its maximum of 16.0 in August 2015.
Latest values
| Date | Value - Percentage points |
|---|---|
| 2025-07-31 | 10.0 |
| 2025-08-31 | 9.0 |
| 2025-09-30 | 5.0 |
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Series Metadata
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Description | Diffusion index for the question: Will finished goods inventories increase or decrease over the next six months? |
| Country | United States |
| Economic concept | Business survey response |
| Data type | Leading 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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