Fifth District Survey of Manufacturing Activity: New orders: 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. According to survey data about manufacturers collected by the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, the seasonally unadjusted diffusion index for new orders (share of CEOs seeing a future increase minus share forecasting a decrease) was 22.0 in November 2025, versus 1.0 in the previous month.
Sample. There are 345 observations in the monthly time series shown in the figure above. The series covers the time span stretching from January 1997 to November 2025.
History. Check out some simple statistics we computed on the entire sample: the diffusion index reached its highest level of 64.0 in February 2002; it hit a trough of -20.0 in October 2022; it averaged 29.0.
Latest values
| Date | Value - Percentage points |
|---|---|
| 2025-09-30 | 3.0 |
| 2025-10-31 | 1.0 |
| 2025-11-30 | 22.0 |
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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 | 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) |
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