Fifth District Survey of Manufacturing Activity: Local business conditions: Future (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 firms' responses to the Fifth District Survey of Manufacturing Activity carried out by the Richmond FED, the seasonally unadjusted diffusion index for local business conditions (share of CEOs seeing a future improvement minus share forecasting a worsening) was 5.0 in April 2026, compared to 19.0 in March.
Sample. In the monthly series shown in the figure, there are 186 records. The time period covered by the series stretches from February 2010 to April 2026.
History. Check out some statistics we calculated on the whole sample: the diffusion index recorded a maximum of 54.0 in February 2011; it reached a trough of -35.0 in October 2022; it had an average value of 21.4.
Latest values
| Date | Value - Percentage points |
|---|---|
| 2026-02-28 | 28.0 |
| 2026-03-31 | 19.0 |
| 2026-04-30 | 5.0 |
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Series Metadata
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Description | Diffusion index for the question: Will local business conditions improve or worsen increase or decrease 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 | 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.