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 a sample of manufacturing firms surveyd by the FED, the seasonally unadjusted diffusion index for local business conditions (share of CEOs seeing a future improvement minus share forecasting a worsening) was 14.0 in May 2026, compared to 5.0 in April 2026.
Sample. There are 187 observations overall in the monthly time series presented in the chart above. The series covers the span of time stretching from February 2010 to May 2026.
History. Check out some descriptive statistics we calculated on the whole sample: the diffusion index was equal on average to 21.4; it achieved a maximum of 54.0 in February 2011; it reached a trough of -35.0 in October 2022.
Latest values
| Date | Value - Percentage points |
|---|---|
| 2026-03-31 | 19.0 |
| 2026-04-30 | 5.0 |
| 2026-05-31 | 14.0 |
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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.