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 recent survey data about manufacturing firms in the Fifth District, the seasonally adjusted diffusion index for shipments (share of CEOs seeing a recent increase minus share reporting a decrease) stood at -20.0 in September 2025, compared to -5.0 in August 2025.
Sample. There are 290 data points overall in the monthly time series shown in the graph above. The time period covered by the series stretches from January 1993 to September 2025.
History. Here's a peek at a few summary statistics we calculated on the full sample: the diffusion index had a mean of 2.7; it reached its lowest level of -71.0 in April 2020; it reached its highest level of 36.0 in March 2004.
Latest values
| Date | Value - Percentage points |
|---|---|
| 2025-07-31 | -18.0 |
| 2025-08-31 | -5.0 |
| 2025-09-30 | -20.0 |
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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) |