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 collected by the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, the seasonally unadjusted diffusion index for inventories of finished goods (share of CEOs seeing a recent increase minus share reporting a decrease) stood at 11.0 in April 2026, compared to 5.0 in March.
Sample. In this monthly series, there are 350 records in total. The series covers the time range going from January 1997 to April 2026.
History. Here’s a quick look at a few descriptive statistics computed on the entire sample: the diffusion index had an average value of 17.4; it hit a minimum of -22.0 in November 2021; it achieved a maximum of 48.0 in September 2000.
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 | 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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