Fifth District Survey of Manufacturing Activity: Inventories of raw materials: 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 a sample of manufacturing firms surveyd by the FED, the seasonally adjusted diffusion index for inventories of raw materials (share of CEOs seeing a recent increase minus share reporting a decrease) stood at 17.0 in September 2025, versus 24.0 in August.
Sample. There are 259 data points overall in the monthly time series displayed in the graph above. The series covers the span of time going from January 1997 to September 2025.
History. Have a look at a few simple statistics we computed on the entire sample: the diffusion index reached a minimum of -25.0 in January 2021; it hit a peak of 35.0 in February 2008; it averaged 14.9.
Latest values
| Date | Value - Percentage points |
|---|---|
| 2025-07-31 | 17.0 |
| 2025-08-31 | 24.0 |
| 2025-09-30 | 17.0 |
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Series Metadata
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Description | Diffusion index for the question: Did raw materials 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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