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 based 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 36.0 in May 2026, compared to 26.0 in April 2026.
Sample. In the monthly series plotted above, there are 351 records. The period covered by the series stretches from January 1997 to May 2026.
History. Have a look at some descriptive statistics we computed on the entire sample: the diffusion index hit a minimum of -22.0 in April 2025; it reached a maximum of 62.0 in February 2002; it had a mean value of 29.1.
Latest values
| Date | Value - Percentage points |
|---|---|
| 2026-03-31 | 30.0 |
| 2026-04-30 | 26.0 |
| 2026-05-31 | 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) |
Series in the same data set
Discover the other time series included in this data set.