Fifth District Survey of Non-Manufacturing Activity: Capital expenditures: Current (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 Non-Manufacturing Activity (Richmond FED)
Download Full Dataset (.xlsx)Latest updates. Based on firms' responses to the Fifth District Survey of Non-Manufacturing Activity carried out by the Richmond FED, the seasonally adjusted diffusion index for capital expenditures (share of CEOs seeing a recent increase minus share reporting a decrease) stood at -3.0 in September 2026, compared to 3.0 in August.
Sample. This monthly series has 190 observations overall. The time period covered by the series is from December 2010 to September 2026.
History. Here's a glimpse of a few descriptive statistics we computed on the whole sample: the diffusion index had a mean of 8.3; it reached its highest level of 30.0 in November 2017; it reached its lowest level of -35.0 in April 2020.
Latest values
| Date | Value - Percentage points |
|---|---|
| 2026-07-31 | 0 |
| 2026-08-31 | 3.00000 |
| 2026-09-30 | -3.00000 |
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Series Metadata
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Description | Diffusion index for the question: Did capital expenditures 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 | 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) |
| Other information | Not available |
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