Fifth District Survey of Manufacturing Activity: Vendor lead times: 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 vendor lead times (share of CEOs seeing a future increase minus share forecasting a decrease) was 15.0 in May 2026, versus 14.0 in April 2026.
Sample. In the monthly time series displayed in the figure, there are 351 observations in total. The series covers the time range going from January 1997 to May 2026.
History. Check out some descriptive statistics we computed on the full sample: the diffusion index had a mean of 5.4; it reached its minimum of -27.0 in August 2022; it attained a maximum of 41.0 in May 2021.
Latest values
| Date | Value - Percentage points |
|---|---|
| 2026-03-31 | 10.0 |
| 2026-04-30 | 14.0 |
| 2026-05-31 | 15.0 |
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Series Metadata
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Description | Diffusion index for the question: Will vendor lead times 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) |
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