Fifth District Survey of Non-Manufacturing Activity: Local business conditions: 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 Non-Manufacturing Activity (Richmond FED)
Download Full Dataset (.xlsx)Latest updates. According to survey data about nonmanufacturing firms collected by the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, the seasonally unadjusted diffusion index for local business conditions (share of CEOs seeing a recent improvement minus share reporting a worsening) stood at -8.0 in September 2026, compared to -11.0 in August.
Sample. The monthly series presented in the graph has 190 records in total. The series covers the span of time stretching from December 2010 to September 2026.
History. Here's a peek at some statistics we computed on the entire sample: the diffusion index recorded its highest level of 40.0 in May 2017; it recorded a bottom of -84.0 in April 2020; it averaged 6.0.
Latest values
| Date | Value - Percentage points |
|---|---|
| 2026-07-31 | -4.00000 |
| 2026-08-31 | -11.0000 |
| 2026-09-30 | -8.00000 |
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Series Metadata
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Description | Diffusion index for the question: Did local business conditions improve or worsen 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) |
| Other information | Not available |
Series in the same data set
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