Fifth District Survey of Manufacturing Activity: Inventories of raw materials: Future (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 recent survey data about manufacturing firms in the Fifth District, the seasonally unadjusted diffusion index for inventories of raw materials (share of CEOs seeing a future increase minus share forecasting a decrease) was 2.0 in July 2026, compared to 3.0 in the previous month.
Sample. There are 353 observations overall in the monthly series presented in the graph above. The series covers the time span stretching from January 1997 to July 2026.
History. Take a look at a few simple statistics computed on the whole sample: the diffusion index averaged -2.3; it recorded a bottom of -27.0 in June 2000; it hit a peak of 16.0 in November 2025.
Latest values
| Date | Value - Percentage points |
|---|---|
| 2026-05-31 | 0.0 |
| 2026-06-30 | 3.0 |
| 2026-07-31 | 2.0 |
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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 | 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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