Fifth District Survey of Manufacturing Activity: Shipments: Future (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 future increase minus share forecasting a decrease) was 19.0 in November 2025, compared to 1.0 in October.
Sample. In the monthly time series plotted above, there are 387 data points in total. The time range covered by the series extends from January 1993 to November 2025.
History. Check out some descriptive statistics we calculated on the entire sample: the diffusion index had a mean value of 30.9; it reached a maximum of 65.0 in March 2018; it recorded a bottom of -11.0 in April 2025.
Latest values
| Date | Value - Percentage points |
|---|---|
| 2025-09-30 | -5.0 |
| 2025-10-31 | 1.0 |
| 2025-11-30 | 19.0 |
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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 | 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) |
Series in the same data set
Discover the other time series included in this data set.