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 collected by the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, the seasonally unadjusted diffusion index for inventories of raw materials (share of CEOs seeing a recent increase minus share reporting a decrease) was 9.0 in January 2026, compared to 11.0 in December 2025.
Sample. In the monthly time series shown in the figure, there are a total of 347 records. The series covers the period extending from January 1997 to January 2026.
History. Check out some descriptive statistics we computed on the entire sample: the diffusion index averaged 15.0; it recorded its highest level of 35.0 in January 2009; it hit a minimum of -25.0 in July 2021.
Latest values
| Date | Value - Percentage points |
|---|---|
| 2025-11-30 | 33.0 |
| 2025-12-31 | 11.0 |
| 2026-01-31 | 9.0 |
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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) |
Series in the same data set
Discover the other time series included in this data set.