Fifth District Survey of Manufacturing Activity: Unfilled orders: 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 collected by the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, the seasonally unadjusted diffusion index for unfilled orders (share of CEOs seeing a future increase minus share forecasting a decrease) was 2.0 in August 2026, compared to 5.0 in July.
Sample. There are 354 observations overall in the monthly time series presented in the chart above. The series covers the time period going from January 1997 to August 2026.
History. Here's a glimpse of a few descriptive statistics we calculated on the whole sample: the diffusion index recorded a bottom of -30.0 in October 2022; it achieved a maximum of 40.0 in February 2002; it averaged 11.0.
Latest values
| Date | Value - Percentage points |
|---|---|
| 2026-06-30 | 12.0 |
| 2026-07-31 | 5.0 |
| 2026-08-31 | 2.0 |
Nugget of wisdom. Our metadata often include links to the sources of the data series we publish. You can use these links to search for additional information needed in your research.
Not for investment purposes. Any data made available on FetchSeries are not not supposed to be used for investment purposes or as a basis for financial-decision making. Users should ask for expert advice and perform their own independent due diligence before pledging money to any investment.
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 | 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.