Fifth District Survey of Manufacturing Activity: Inventories of finished goods: Future (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 recent survey data about manufacturing firms in the Fifth District, the seasonally unadjusted diffusion index for inventories of finished goods (share of CEOs seeing a future increase minus share forecasting a decrease) stood at 1.0 in August 2026, as in July 2026.
Sample. In this monthly time series, there are 354 records in total. The time range covered by the series goes from January 1997 to August 2026.
History. Here are some simple statistics computed on the entire sample: the diffusion index was equal on average to -3.2; it hit a trough of -44.0 in August 2000; it recorded its highest level of 16.0 in August 2015.
Latest values
| Date | Value - Percentage points |
|---|---|
| 2026-06-30 | -1.0 |
| 2026-07-31 | 1.0 |
| 2026-08-31 | 1.0 |
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Series Metadata
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Description | Diffusion index for the question: Will finished goods inventories increase or decrease over the next six months? |
| Country | United States |
| Economic concept | Business survey response |
| Data type | Leading 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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