Fifth District Survey of Manufacturing Activity: Capacity utilization: Future (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 Manufacturing Activity (Richmond FED)
Download Full Dataset (.xlsx)Latest updates. Based on a sample of manufacturing firms surveyd by the FED, the seasonally adjusted diffusion index for capacity utilization (share of CEOs seeing a future increase minus share reporting a decrease) was 18.0 in January 2026, compared to 14.0 in December 2025.
Sample. In this monthly time series, there are 347 records in total. The time span covered by the series goes from January 1997 to January 2026.
History. Check out some statistics we computed on the full sample: the diffusion index hit a minimum of -11.0 in April 2020; it reached its highest level of 52.0 in June 2020; it was equal on average to 22.7.
Latest values
| Date | Value - Percentage points |
|---|---|
| 2025-11-30 | 10.0 |
| 2025-12-31 | 14.0 |
| 2026-01-31 | 18.0 |
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Series Metadata
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Description | Diffusion index for the question: Will capacity utilization 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 | 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) |
Series in the same data set
Discover the other time series included in this data set.