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 recent survey data about manufacturing firms 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 -12.0 in September 2025, compared to 0.0 in August.
Sample. There are 136 observations in the monthly time series shown in the chart above. The period covered by the series stretches from February 2010 to September 2025.
History. Here's a peek at a few simple statistics computed on the full sample: the diffusion index hit a peak of 32.0 in January 2017; it reached a trough of -82.0 in April 2020; it was equal on average to -0.2.
Latest values
| Date | Value - Percentage points |
|---|---|
| 2025-07-31 | -11.0 |
| 2025-08-31 | 0.0 |
| 2025-09-30 | -12.0 |
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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) |