Fifth District Survey of Manufacturing Activity: Inventories of raw materials: Future (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 raw materials (share of CEOs seeing a future increase minus share forecasting a decrease) was 7.0 in September 2025, versus 2.0 in the previous month.
Sample. There are 259 data points in the monthly series shown in the figure above. The time period covered by the series stretches from January 1997 to September 2025.
History. Take a look at some descriptive statistics we computed on the whole sample: the diffusion index averaged -2.4; it recorded a minimum of -26.0 in May 2021; it hit a maximum of 14.0 in April 2015.
Latest values
| Date | Value - Percentage points |
|---|---|
| 2025-07-31 | 3.0 |
| 2025-08-31 | 2.0 |
| 2025-09-30 | 7.0 |
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Series Metadata
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Description | Diffusion index for the question: Will raw materials 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 | 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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