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. According to survey data about manufacturers based in the Fifth District, the seasonally unadjusted diffusion index for shipments (share of CEOs seeing a recent increase minus share reporting a decrease) was -11.0 in January 2026, versus -17.0 in December 2025.
Sample. This monthly series has a total of 389 observations. The series covers the period going from January 1993 to January 2026.
History. Here's a peek at a few descriptive statistics we calculated on the entire sample: the diffusion index recorded its maximum of 46.0 in March 2004; it registered a minimum of -59.0 in January 2009; it had a mean value of 2.7.
Latest values
| Date | Value - Percentage points |
|---|---|
| 2025-11-30 | -13.0 |
| 2025-12-31 | -17.0 |
| 2026-01-31 | -11.0 |
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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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