Fifth District Survey of Manufacturing Activity: Local business conditions: 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. According to survey data about manufacturers collected by the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, the seasonally adjusted diffusion index for local business conditions (share of CEOs seeing a recent improvement minus share reporting a worsening) was -12.0 in September 2025, versus 0.0 in August 2025.
Sample. This monthly time series has a total of 136 data points. The series covers the period stretching from February 2010 to September 2025.
History. Here are some statistics calculated on the whole sample: the diffusion index recorded a bottom of -82.0 in April 2020; it reached its highest level of 32.0 in January 2017; it had a mean value of -0.2.
Latest values
| Date | Value - Percentage points |
|---|---|
| 2025-07-31 | -11.0 |
| 2025-08-31 | 0.0 |
| 2025-09-30 | -12.0 |
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Series Metadata
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Description | Diffusion index for the question: Did local business conditions improve or worsen 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) |
Series in the same data set
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