Average Fed Mfg Survey: Capital expenditures: Future (increase vs decrease; diffusion index; percentage points; seasonally unadjusted) - United States - FSR - Monthly
This series is part of the dataset: Average Fed Mfg Survey (FetchSeries Research)
Download Full Dataset (.xlsx)Latest updates. Based on an average of regional Federal Reserve manufacturing surveys, the seasonally unadjusted diffusion index for capital expenditures stood at 17.1 (share of CEOs seeing a future increase minus share forecasting a decrease) in September 2026, compared to 19.5 in August 2026.
Sample. The monthly time series shown in the figure has 268 records. The period covered by the series goes from June 2004 to September 2026.
History. Here's a glimpse of some simple statistics calculated on the whole sample: the diffusion index reached its highest level of 37.3 in February 2018; it hit a minimum of -20.4 in February 2009; it had a mean of 17.1.
Latest values
| Date | Value - Percentage points |
|---|---|
| 2026-07-31 | 13.9200 |
| 2026-08-31 | 19.4800 |
| 2026-09-30 | 17.1400 |
Hint. We organize time series into data sets and worksheets for easier exploration. If you navigate further down, you will find how we structured further material related to the statistics published here.
Not for investment purposes. Any financial data collected and published on this web site are not intended for investment purposes or as a basis for making financial decisions. Users should consult professional advice and do their own independent due diligence before taking any financial risk.
Series Metadata
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Description | Diffusion index for the question: Will capital expenditures increase or decrease over the next six months? |
| Country | United States |
| Economic concept | Business survey response |
| Data type | Leading indicator of the business cycle |
| Seasonally adjusted | No |
| Deflation method | Not applicable |
| Rescaling | None |
| Measure type | Diffusion index (share of respondents reporting an increase minus share reporting a decrease) |
| Frequency | Monthly |
| Unit | Percentage points |
| Source | FetchSeries Research calculations on Federal Reserve data |
| Source type | Data research lab |
| Data licence | Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) + FetchSeries disclaimers |
| Other information | Arithmetic average across 5 regional Federal Reserve manufacturing surveys |
| FSR temporal aggregation code | LM01 |
Series in the same data set
Discover the other time series included in this data set.