Fifth District Survey of Manufacturing Activity: Vendor lead times: 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. Based on a sample of manufacturing firms surveyd by the FED, the seasonally unadjusted diffusion index for vendor lead times (share of CEOs seeing a recent increase minus share reporting a decrease) was 10.0 in September 2025, compared to 9.0 in August.
Sample. In the monthly series presented in the figure, there are 266 data points. The series covers the period stretching from January 1996 to September 2025.
History. Have a look at a few statistics we calculated on the whole sample: the diffusion index had an average value of 6.7; it hit a peak of 73.0 in May 2021; it hit a trough of -32.0 in February 2022.
Latest values
| Date | Value - Percentage points |
|---|---|
| 2025-07-31 | 6.0 |
| 2025-08-31 | 9.0 |
| 2025-09-30 | 10.0 |
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Series Metadata
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Description | Diffusion index for the question: Did vendor lead times 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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