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 3.0 in May 2026, compared to 8.0 in April.
Sample. In this monthly series, there are 351 records in total. The series covers the span of time going from January 1997 to May 2026.
History. Here are some simple statistics we calculated on the entire sample: the diffusion index was equal on average to 14.9; it registered a minimum of -25.0 in July 2021; it hit a peak of 35.0 in January 2009.
Latest values
| Date | Value - Percentage points |
|---|---|
| 2026-03-31 | 3.0 |
| 2026-04-30 | 8.0 |
| 2026-05-31 | 3.0 |
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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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