Fifth District Survey of Manufacturing Activity: Inventories of finished goods: 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. Based on a sample of manufacturing firms surveyd by the FED, the seasonally unadjusted diffusion index for inventories of finished goods (share of CEOs seeing a recent increase minus share reporting a decrease) was 4.0 in May 2026, compared to 11.0 in April 2026.
Sample. In the monthly time series presented in the figure, there are 351 records in total. The period covered by the series stretches from January 1997 to May 2026.
History. Here's a snapshot of some simple statistics we calculated on the entire sample: the diffusion index hit a minimum of -22.0 in November 2021; it reached its highest level of 48.0 in September 2000; it had an average value of 17.4.
Latest values
| Date | Value - Percentage points |
|---|---|
| 2026-03-31 | 5.0 |
| 2026-04-30 | 11.0 |
| 2026-05-31 | 4.0 |
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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 | 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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