Fifth District Survey of Manufacturing Activity: Shipments: 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 firms' responses to the Fifth District Survey of Manufacturing Activity carried out by the Richmond FED, the seasonally adjusted diffusion index for shipments (share of CEOs seeing a recent increase minus share reporting a decrease) was -20.0 in September 2025, compared to -5.0 in August.
Sample. The monthly time series shown in the figure has 290 data points in total. The time range covered by the series extends from January 1993 to September 2025.
History. Check out a few summary statistics we calculated on the entire sample: the diffusion index was equal on average to 2.7; it reached a trough of -71.0 in April 2020; it reached its highest level of 36.0 in March 2004.
Latest values
| Date | Value - Percentage points |
|---|---|
| 2025-07-31 | -18.0 |
| 2025-08-31 | -5.0 |
| 2025-09-30 | -20.0 |
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Series Metadata
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Description | Diffusion index for the question: Did shipments 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) |
Series in the same data set
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