Fifth District Survey of Manufacturing Activity: New orders: Current (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 survey data about manufacturers collected by the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, the seasonally unadjusted diffusion index for new orders (share of CEOs seeing a recent increase minus share reporting a decrease) stood at -9.0 in September 2025, compared to -13.0 in the previous month.
Sample. There are 290 data points overall in the monthly series displayed in the figure above. The period covered by the series is from January 1993 to September 2025.
History. Have a look at a few statistics we calculated on the whole sample: the diffusion index averaged 2.1; it reached a trough of -56.0 in February 2008; it attained a maximum of 45.0 in April 2010.
Latest values
| Date | Value - Percentage points |
|---|---|
| 2025-07-31 | -29.0 |
| 2025-08-31 | -13.0 |
| 2025-09-30 | -9.0 |
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Series Metadata
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Description | Diffusion index for the question: Did new orders 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 | 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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