Fifth District Survey of Manufacturing Activity: New orders: 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. According to survey data about manufacturers collected by the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, the seasonally adjusted diffusion index for new orders (share of CEOs seeing a future increase minus share forecasting a decrease) was 36.0 in January 2026, compared to 27.0 in December 2025.
Sample. In this monthly time series, there are 347 data points. The span of time covered by the series is from January 1997 to January 2026.
History. Here's a glimpse of a few summary statistics we computed on the whole sample: the diffusion index had an average value of 29.1; it recorded a bottom of -22.0 in April 2025; it reached its highest level of 62.0 in February 2002.
Latest values
| Date | Value - Percentage points |
|---|---|
| 2025-11-30 | 26.0 |
| 2025-12-31 | 27.0 |
| 2026-01-31 | 36.0 |
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Series Metadata
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Description | Diffusion index for the question: Will new orders 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 | 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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