Fifth District Survey of Manufacturing Activity: Vendor lead times: Current (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 vendor lead times (share of CEOs seeing a recent increase minus share reporting a decrease) was 10.0 in September 2025, versus 11.0 in August.
Sample. In the monthly time series shown in the plot, there are a total of 266 data points. The span of time covered by the series is from January 1996 to September 2025.
History. Here's a peek at a few simple statistics we calculated on the whole sample: the diffusion index was equal on average to 6.3; it registered a minimum of -29.0 in February 2022; it reached a maximum of 67.0 in May 2021.
Latest values
| Date | Value - Percentage points |
|---|---|
| 2025-07-31 | 7.0 |
| 2025-08-31 | 11.0 |
| 2025-09-30 | 10.0 |
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Series Metadata
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Description | Diffusion index for the question: Did vendor lead times increase or decrease in the past month? |
| Country | United States |
| Economic concept | Business survey response |
| Data type | Coincident 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) |