Fifth District Survey of Manufacturing Activity: Local business conditions: Future (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. Based on firms' responses to the Fifth District Survey of Manufacturing Activity carried out by the Richmond FED, the seasonally adjusted diffusion index for local business conditions (share of CEOs seeing a future improvement minus share forecasting a worsening) was 7.0 in October 2026, versus 10.0 in September 2026.
Sample. There are 191 data points overall in the monthly series shown in the chart above. The time range covered by the series goes from December 2010 to October 2026.
History. Here's a glimpse of some descriptive statistics we computed on the entire sample: the diffusion index recorded a minimum of -35.0 in April 2020; it hit a maximum of 54.0 in June 2020; it had a mean of 21.1.
Latest values
| Date | Value - Percentage points |
|---|---|
| 2026-08-31 | 16.0000 |
| 2026-09-30 | 10.0000 |
| 2026-10-31 | 7.00000 |
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Series Metadata
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Description | Diffusion index for the question: Will local business conditions improve or worsen 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 | 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) |
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