Fifth District Survey of Manufacturing Activity: Local business conditions: Current (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. Based on a sample of manufacturing firms surveyd by the FED, the seasonally unadjusted diffusion index for local business conditions (share of CEOs seeing a recent improvement minus share reporting a worsening) was -19.0 in November 2025, compared to -6.0 in the previous month.
Sample. There are 181 data points in the monthly time series displayed in the chart above. The series covers the span of time stretching from February 2010 to November 2025.
History. Check out some descriptive statistics we computed on the full sample: the diffusion index hit a minimum of -72.0 in April 2020; it recorded its maximum of 32.0 in April 2017; it was equal on average to 0.2.
Latest values
| Date | Value - Percentage points |
|---|---|
| 2025-09-30 | -12.0 |
| 2025-10-31 | -6.0 |
| 2025-11-30 | -19.0 |
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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 | 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) |
Series in the same data set
Discover the other time series included in this data set.