Fifth District Survey of Manufacturing Activity: Vendor lead times: Future (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. According to recent survey data about manufacturing firms in the Fifth District, the seasonally adjusted diffusion index for vendor lead times (share of CEOs seeing a future increase minus share forecasting a decrease) stood at 6.0 in September 2025, compared to 12.0 in the previous month.
Sample. There are 259 observations in the monthly series displayed in the chart above. The series covers the time range stretching from January 1997 to September 2025.
History. Here's a peek at a few descriptive statistics we computed on the full sample: the diffusion index had an average value of 5.4; it peaked at 41.0 in May 2021; it recorded a minimum of -27.0 in August 2022.
Latest values
| Date | Value - Percentage points |
|---|---|
| 2025-07-31 | 6.0 |
| 2025-08-31 | 12.0 |
| 2025-09-30 | 6.0 |
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Series Metadata
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Description | Diffusion index for the question: Will vendor lead times 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 | 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) |
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