Fifth District Survey of Manufacturing Activity: Shipments: Current (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. Based on firms' responses to the Fifth District Survey of Manufacturing Activity carried out by the Richmond FED, the seasonally adjusted diffusion index for shipments (share of CEOs seeing a recent increase minus share reporting a decrease) was -14.0 in November 2025, compared to 4.0 in October 2025.
Sample. There are 387 observations in the monthly series presented in the graph above. The time period covered by the series is from January 1993 to November 2025.
History. Here are some statistics we computed on the whole sample: the diffusion index recorded a maximum of 36.0 in March 2004; it registered a minimum of -71.0 in April 2020; it had an average value of 2.8.
Latest values
| Date | Value - Percentage points |
|---|---|
| 2025-09-30 | -20.0 |
| 2025-10-31 | 4.0 |
| 2025-11-30 | -14.0 |
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Series Metadata
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Description | Diffusion index for the question: Did shipments increase or decrease in the past month? |
| Country | United States |
| Economic concept | Business survey response |
| Data type | Coincident 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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