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 0.0 in October 2026, compared to -5.0 in September.
Sample. There are 396 data points in the monthly series displayed in the figure above. The span of time covered by the series is from November 1993 to October 2026.
History. Here's a glimpse of some descriptive statistics calculated on the whole sample: the diffusion index recorded a minimum of -70.0 in April 2020; it reached its highest level of 37.0 in March 2004; it was equal on average to 2.7.
Latest values
| Date | Value - Percentage points |
|---|---|
| 2026-08-31 | 11.0000 |
| 2026-09-30 | -5.00000 |
| 2026-10-31 | 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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