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) stood at 36.0 in February 2026, compared to 37.0 in January.
Sample. The monthly time series displayed in the figure has 390 records overall. The series covers the time range extending from January 1993 to February 2026.
History. Here's a snapshot of a few descriptive statistics we computed on the whole sample: the diffusion index hit a peak of 65.0 in March 2018; it recorded a minimum of -11.0 in April 2025; it had a mean of 31.0.
Latest values
| Date | Value - Percentage points |
|---|---|
| 2025-12-31 | 28.0 |
| 2026-01-31 | 37.0 |
| 2026-02-28 | 36.0 |
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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) |
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