Fifth District Survey of Manufacturing Activity: Unfilled 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 unfilled orders (share of CEOs seeing a recent increase minus share reporting a decrease) was -8.0 in September 2026, compared to -11.0 in August.
Sample. There are 395 observations in the monthly series shown in the figure above. The series covers the span of time going from November 1993 to September 2026.
History. Here are a few descriptive statistics we computed on the whole sample: the diffusion index reached a trough of -54.0 in December 2008; it hit a peak of 35.0 in May 2021; it had a mean value of -7.4.
Latest values
| Date | Value - Percentage points |
|---|---|
| 2026-07-31 | 3.00000 |
| 2026-08-31 | -11.0000 |
| 2026-09-30 | -8.00000 |
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Series Metadata
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Description | Diffusion index for the question: Did unfilled 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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