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. According to recent survey data about manufacturing firms in the Fifth District, the seasonally unadjusted diffusion index for local business conditions (share of CEOs seeing a recent improvement minus share reporting a worsening) was 1.0 in August 2026, versus 10.0 in July 2026.
Sample. This monthly time series has 190 data points. The series covers the time span extending from February 2010 to August 2026.
History. Here's a snapshot of a few statistics computed on the whole sample: the diffusion index peaked at 32.0 in April 2017; it hit a trough of -72.0 in April 2020; it had an average value of 0.1.
Latest values
| Date | Value - Percentage points |
|---|---|
| 2026-06-30 | -3.0 |
| 2026-07-31 | 10.0 |
| 2026-08-31 | 1.0 |
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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) |
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