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. According to survey data about manufacturers collected by the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, the seasonally adjusted diffusion index for shipments (share of CEOs seeing a recent increase minus share reporting a decrease) was -13.0 in February 2026, versus -5.0 in the previous month.
Sample. There are 390 observations overall in the monthly series presented in the plot above. The series covers the time span going from January 1993 to February 2026.
History. Check out some statistics we computed on the full sample: the diffusion index achieved a maximum of 36.0 in March 2004; it hit a minimum of -71.0 in April 2020; it had a mean value of 2.7.
Latest values
| Date | Value - Percentage points |
|---|---|
| 2025-12-31 | -11.0 |
| 2026-01-31 | -5.0 |
| 2026-02-28 | -13.0 |
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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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