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 firms' responses to the Fifth District Survey of Manufacturing Activity carried out by the Richmond FED, the seasonally unadjusted diffusion index for inventories of finished goods (share of CEOs seeing a recent increase minus share reporting a decrease) stood at 5.0 in January 2026, compared to 7.0 in December 2025.
Sample. The monthly series presented in the chart has 347 observations in total. The period covered by the series is from January 1997 to January 2026.
History. Here's a snapshot of some simple statistics computed on the whole sample: the diffusion index averaged 17.5; it reached its maximum of 48.0 in September 2000; it hit a minimum of -22.0 in November 2021.
Latest values
| Date | Value - Percentage points |
|---|---|
| 2025-11-30 | 17.0 |
| 2025-12-31 | 7.0 |
| 2026-01-31 | 5.0 |
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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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