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. According to survey data about manufacturers based in the Fifth District, the seasonally unadjusted diffusion index for inventories of finished goods (share of CEOs seeing a recent increase minus share reporting a decrease) was 10.0 in September 2025, compared to 18.0 in August 2025.
Sample. There are 259 data points overall in the monthly series shown in the graph above. The series covers the span of time extending from January 1997 to September 2025.
History. Here are a few descriptive statistics we computed on the entire sample: the diffusion index reached a trough of -22.0 in January 2021; it recorded its maximum of 48.0 in September 2000; it averaged 17.6.
Latest values
| Date | Value - Percentage points |
|---|---|
| 2025-07-31 | 16.0 |
| 2025-08-31 | 18.0 |
| 2025-09-30 | 10.0 |
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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) |