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) was 2.0 in October 2026, versus 0.0 in the previous month.
Sample. This monthly time series has 354 data points. The time range covered by the series extends from May 1997 to October 2026.
History. Here's a snapshot of a few simple statistics we computed on the full sample: the diffusion index hit a peak of 16.0 in August 2015; it reached its minimum of -44.0 in August 2000; it had a mean value of -3.1.
Latest values
| Date | Value - Percentage points |
|---|---|
| 2026-08-31 | 1.00000 |
| 2026-09-30 | 0 |
| 2026-10-31 | 2.00000 |
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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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