Fifth District Survey of Manufacturing Activity: Local business conditions: Current (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. According to survey data about manufacturers based in the Fifth District, the seasonally adjusted diffusion index for local business conditions (share of CEOs seeing a recent improvement minus share reporting a worsening) stood at 5.0 in May 2026, versus 10.0 in the previous month.
Sample. There are 187 data points in the monthly time series shown in the graph above. The time span covered by the series is from February 2010 to May 2026.
History. Here’s a quick look at some simple statistics we computed on the full sample: the diffusion index reached its minimum of -82.0 in April 2020; it recorded its highest level of 32.0 in November 2017; it had a mean value of 0.2.
Latest values
| Date | Value - Percentage points |
|---|---|
| 2026-03-31 | -5.0 |
| 2026-04-30 | 10.0 |
| 2026-05-31 | 5.0 |
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Series Metadata
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Description | Diffusion index for the question: Did local business conditions improve or worsen 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 | 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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