Fifth District Survey of Manufacturing Activity: Capital expenditures: 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 Manufacturing Activity (Richmond FED)
Download Full Dataset (.xlsx)Latest updates. According to recent survey data about manufacturing firms in the Fifth District, the seasonally unadjusted diffusion index for capital expenditures (share of CEOs seeing a recent increase minus share reporting a decrease) stood at -16.0 in January 2026, compared to -1.0 in December 2025.
Sample. This monthly series has 183 observations in total. The time range covered by the series extends from February 2010 to January 2026.
History. Here’s a quick look at a few simple statistics calculated on the entire sample: the diffusion index hit a minimum of -29.0 in May 2020; it attained a maximum of 31.0 in April 2018; it had a mean value of 8.8.
Latest values
| Date | Value - Percentage points |
|---|---|
| 2025-11-30 | -4.0 |
| 2025-12-31 | -1.0 |
| 2026-01-31 | -16.0 |
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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 | 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) |
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