Fifth District Survey of Manufacturing Activity: Capital expenditures: 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 capital expenditures (share of CEOs seeing a future increase minus share forecasting a decrease) was -6.0 in July 2026, compared to 7.0 in June.
Sample. There are 353 observations overall in the monthly time series shown in the plot above. The time period covered by the series stretches from January 1997 to July 2026.
History. Here's a glimpse of a few summary statistics we computed on the entire sample: the diffusion index reached a minimum of -31.0 in November 2008; it reached its highest level of 42.0 in May 2021; it had an average value of 14.3.
Latest values
| Date | Value - Percentage points |
|---|---|
| 2026-05-31 | 4.0 |
| 2026-06-30 | 7.0 |
| 2026-07-31 | -6.0 |
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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 |
| 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) |
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