Fifth District Survey of Manufacturing Activity: Inventories of raw materials: 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 raw materials (share of CEOs seeing a recent increase minus share reporting a decrease) stood at 8.0 in April 2026, compared to 3.0 in March 2026.
Sample. There are 350 records in the monthly time series displayed in the plot above. The period covered by the series goes from January 1997 to April 2026.
History. Take a look at some summary statistics we calculated on the whole sample: the diffusion index hit a trough of -25.0 in July 2021; it recorded its highest level of 35.0 in January 2009; it had a mean of 14.9.
Latest values
| Date | Value - Percentage points |
|---|---|
| 2026-02-28 | 11.0 |
| 2026-03-31 | 3.0 |
| 2026-04-30 | 8.0 |
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Series Metadata
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Description | Diffusion index for the question: Did raw materials 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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