Fifth District Survey of Manufacturing Activity: Shipments: Future (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 future increase minus share forecasting a decrease) stood at 26.0 in August 2026, compared to 33.0 in July.
Sample. There are 396 records in the monthly time series presented in the graph above. The time period covered by the series stretches from January 1993 to August 2026.
History. Take a look at a few descriptive statistics we calculated on the entire sample: the diffusion index registered a minimum of -16.0 in April 2025; it reached its maximum of 57.0 in February 2002; it had a mean value of 31.0.
Latest values
| Date | Value - Percentage points |
|---|---|
| 2026-06-30 | 36.0 |
| 2026-07-31 | 33.0 |
| 2026-08-31 | 26.0 |
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Series Metadata
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Description | Diffusion index for the question: Will shipments increase or decrease over the next six months? |
| Country | United States |
| Economic concept | Business survey response |
| Data type | Leading 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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