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 0.0 in September 2026, versus 1.0 in August.
Sample. There are 353 data points in the monthly time series presented in the graph above. The time span covered by the series extends from May 1997 to September 2026.
History. Here's a glimpse of some descriptive statistics we computed on the entire sample: the diffusion index averaged -3.1; it recorded its highest level of 16.0 in August 2015; it recorded a bottom of -44.0 in August 2000.
Latest values
| Date | Value - Percentage points |
|---|---|
| 2026-07-31 | 1.00000 |
| 2026-08-31 | 1.00000 |
| 2026-09-30 | 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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