Fifth District Survey of Manufacturing Activity: Unfilled orders: 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. Based on firms' responses to the Fifth District Survey of Manufacturing Activity carried out by the Richmond FED, the seasonally adjusted diffusion index for unfilled orders (share of CEOs seeing a future increase minus share forecasting a decrease) was 4.0 in January 2026, compared to 5.0 in December 2025.
Sample. There are 347 records overall in the monthly series displayed in the chart above. The series covers the time period extending from January 1997 to January 2026.
History. Take a look at a few descriptive statistics we computed on the entire sample: the diffusion index reached a trough of -32.0 in April 2020; it hit a peak of 39.0 in February 2002; it averaged 11.1.
Latest values
| Date | Value - Percentage points |
|---|---|
| 2025-11-30 | 3.0 |
| 2025-12-31 | 5.0 |
| 2026-01-31 | 4.0 |
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Series Metadata
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Description | Diffusion index for the question: Will unfilled orders 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) |
Series in the same data set
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