Fifth District Survey of Manufacturing Activity: Inventories of raw materials: Future (increase vs decrease; diffusion index; percentage points; seasonally adjusted) - 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 a sample of manufacturing firms surveyd by the FED, the seasonally adjusted diffusion index for inventories of raw materials (share of CEOs seeing a future increase minus share forecasting a decrease) was 3.0 in August 2026, as in July.
Sample. There are 354 data points overall in the monthly time series displayed in the chart above. The time period covered by the series goes from January 1997 to August 2026.
History. Have a look at a few descriptive statistics we computed on the entire sample: the diffusion index had an average value of -2.3; it reached its highest level of 14.0 in April 2015; it reached its minimum of -26.0 in May 2021.
Latest values
| Date | Value - Percentage points |
|---|---|
| 2026-06-30 | 3.0 |
| 2026-07-31 | 3.0 |
| 2026-08-31 | 3.0 |
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Series Metadata
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Description | Diffusion index for the question: Will raw materials 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 | Yes |
| 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
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