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 recent survey data about manufacturing firms in the Fifth District, the seasonally adjusted diffusion index for new orders (share of CEOs seeing a future increase minus share forecasting a decrease) was 26.0 in November 2025, compared to 12.0 in October.
Sample. In this monthly time series, there are 345 data points in total. The series covers the span of time stretching from January 1997 to November 2025.
History. Here's a glimpse of a few descriptive statistics we calculated on the full sample: the diffusion index attained a maximum of 62.0 in February 2002; it reached its minimum of -22.0 in April 2025; it averaged 29.1.
Latest values
| Date | Value - Percentage points |
|---|---|
| 2025-09-30 | 8.0 |
| 2025-10-31 | 12.0 |
| 2025-11-30 | 26.0 |
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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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