Fifth District Survey of Manufacturing Activity: Inventories of raw materials: 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. According to recent survey data about manufacturing firms in the Fifth District, the seasonally unadjusted diffusion index for inventories of raw materials (share of CEOs seeing a future increase minus share forecasting a decrease) was 8.0 in September 2025, compared to 1.0 in August 2025.
Sample. In this monthly time series, there are 259 data points overall. The series covers the period going from January 1997 to September 2025.
History. Here’s a quick look at a few summary statistics computed on the whole sample: the diffusion index had a mean of -2.6; it reached a minimum of -27.0 in June 2000; it reached a maximum of 14.0 in August 2015.
Latest values
| Date | Value - Percentage points |
|---|---|
| 2025-07-31 | 1.0 |
| 2025-08-31 | 1.0 |
| 2025-09-30 | 8.0 |
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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 | 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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