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 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 future increase minus share forecasting a decrease) was -2.0 in January 2026, compared to 3.0 in December 2025.
Sample. There are 347 observations in the monthly series displayed in the plot above. The series covers the span of time going from January 1997 to January 2026.
History. Check out some simple statistics calculated on the entire sample: the diffusion index averaged -2.4; it reached its lowest level of -27.0 in June 2000; it reached a maximum of 16.0 in November 2025.
Latest values
| Date | Value - Percentage points |
|---|---|
| 2025-11-30 | 16.0 |
| 2025-12-31 | 3.0 |
| 2026-01-31 | -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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