Fifth District Survey of Manufacturing Activity: Shipments: 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 shipments (share of CEOs seeing a future increase minus share forecasting a decrease) was -5.0 in September 2025, versus 7.0 in August 2025.
Sample. The monthly series displayed in the graph has 290 observations. The time span covered by the series goes from January 1993 to September 2025.
History. Take a look at a few statistics we calculated on the full sample: the diffusion index had a mean of 29.6; it hit a minimum of -11.0 in April 2025; it reached a maximum of 65.0 in March 2018.
Latest values
| Date | Value - Percentage points |
|---|---|
| 2025-07-31 | 7.0 |
| 2025-08-31 | 7.0 |
| 2025-09-30 | -5.0 |
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Series Metadata
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Description | Diffusion index for the question: Will shipments 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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