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. According to survey data about manufacturers collected by the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, the seasonally adjusted diffusion index for capacity utilization (share of CEOs seeing a future increase minus share reporting a decrease) was 15.0 in February 2026, versus 18.0 in the previous month.
Sample. There are 348 data points in the monthly series displayed in the graph above. The time span covered by the series extends from January 1997 to February 2026.
History. Here's a glimpse of some descriptive statistics we calculated on the whole sample: the diffusion index recorded its highest level of 52.0 in June 2020; it recorded a minimum of -11.0 in April 2020; it averaged 22.7.
Latest values
| Date | Value - Percentage points |
|---|---|
| 2025-12-31 | 14.0 |
| 2026-01-31 | 18.0 |
| 2026-02-28 | 15.0 |
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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
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