Fifth District Survey of Manufacturing Activity: Capital expenditures: Future (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 survey data about manufacturers collected by the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, the seasonally unadjusted diffusion index for capital expenditures (share of CEOs seeing a future increase minus share forecasting a decrease) was -10.0 in September 2025, compared to -17.0 in August.
Sample. There are 259 records overall in the monthly time series shown in the chart above. The series covers the period extending from January 1997 to September 2025.
History. Here's a peek at a few descriptive statistics we computed on the whole sample: the diffusion index was equal on average to 14.0; it hit a peak of 45.0 in May 2021; it reached a minimum of -34.0 in January 2008.
Latest values
| Date | Value - Percentage points |
|---|---|
| 2025-07-31 | -17.0 |
| 2025-08-31 | -17.0 |
| 2025-09-30 | -10.0 |
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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 | 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) |