Fifth District Survey of Manufacturing Activity: Shipments: Current (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. Based on firms' responses to the Fifth District Survey of Manufacturing Activity carried out by the Richmond FED, the seasonally unadjusted diffusion index for shipments (share of CEOs seeing a recent increase minus share reporting a decrease) stood at 8.0 in July 2026, versus 3.0 in the previous month.
Sample. The monthly time series shown in the plot has 395 observations. The period covered by the series extends from January 1993 to July 2026.
History. Here's a peek at some descriptive statistics we calculated on the entire sample: the diffusion index attained a maximum of 46.0 in March 2004; it reached a minimum of -59.0 in January 2009; it was equal on average to 2.7.
Latest values
| Date | Value - Percentage points |
|---|---|
| 2026-05-31 | 13.0 |
| 2026-06-30 | 3.0 |
| 2026-07-31 | 8.0 |
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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 | 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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