Fifth District Survey of Manufacturing Activity: Inventories of finished goods: Current (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 inventories of finished goods (share of CEOs seeing a recent increase minus share reporting a decrease) was 11.0 in April 2026, compared to 5.0 in the previous month.
Sample. There are 350 data points in the monthly series displayed in the plot above. The time period covered by the series is from January 1997 to April 2026.
History. Have a look at some simple statistics we computed on the whole sample: the diffusion index reached a maximum of 47.0 in September 2000; it reached a minimum of -21.0 in November 2021; it had an average value of 17.4.
Latest values
| Date | Value - Percentage points |
|---|---|
| 2026-02-28 | 7.0 |
| 2026-03-31 | 5.0 |
| 2026-04-30 | 11.0 |
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Series Metadata
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Description | Diffusion index for the question: Did finished goods inventories 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 | 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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