Fifth District Survey of Manufacturing Activity: Vendor lead times: 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 vendor lead times (share of CEOs seeing a future increase minus share forecasting a decrease) was 5.0 in September 2026, compared to 10.0 in August 2026.
Sample. There are 353 data points overall in the monthly time series displayed in the plot above. The time span covered by the series is from May 1997 to September 2026.
History. Have a look at a few descriptive statistics we computed on the full sample: the diffusion index averaged 5.5; it peaked at 46.0 in May 2021; it hit a minimum of -31.0 in December 2022.
Latest values
| Date | Value - Percentage points |
|---|---|
| 2026-07-31 | 12.0000 |
| 2026-08-31 | 10.0000 |
| 2026-09-30 | 5.00000 |
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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 | 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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