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 6.0 in September 2025, compared to 11.0 in August 2025.
Sample. In the monthly series plotted above, there are a total of 259 observations. The time period covered by the series stretches from January 1997 to September 2025.
History. Check out a few summary statistics calculated on the entire sample: the diffusion index averaged 5.4; it hit a maximum of 46.0 in May 2021; it hit a trough of -31.0 in February 2022.
Latest values
| Date | Value - Percentage points |
|---|---|
| 2025-07-31 | 6.0 |
| 2025-08-31 | 11.0 |
| 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 | 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) |
Series in the same data set
Discover the other time series included in this data set.