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. 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 raw materials (share of CEOs seeing a recent increase minus share reporting a decrease) was 0.0 in October 2026, compared to 5.0 in the previous month.
Sample. In this monthly time series, there are 354 data points overall. The period covered by the series goes from May 1997 to October 2026.
History. Here's a glimpse of some summary statistics we calculated on the whole sample: the diffusion index had a mean value of 14.7; it reached its minimum of -25.0 in July 2021; it reached its maximum of 35.0 in December 2008.
Latest values
| Date | Value - Percentage points |
|---|---|
| 2026-08-31 | 10.0000 |
| 2026-09-30 | 5.00000 |
| 2026-10-31 | 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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