Fifth District Survey of Manufacturing Activity: Vendor lead times: 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. Based on firms' responses to the Fifth District Survey of Manufacturing Activity carried out by the Richmond FED, the seasonally unadjusted diffusion index for vendor lead times (share of CEOs seeing a future increase minus share forecasting a decrease) was 15.0 in April 2026, versus 10.0 in the previous month.
Sample. There are 350 observations overall in the monthly series shown in the plot above. The time span covered by the series stretches from January 1997 to April 2026.
History. Here’s a quick look at a few simple statistics we calculated on the full sample: the diffusion index reached a maximum of 46.0 in May 2021; it reached a minimum of -31.0 in December 2022; it had a mean of 5.4.
Latest values
| Date | Value - Percentage points |
|---|---|
| 2026-02-28 | -1.0 |
| 2026-03-31 | 10.0 |
| 2026-04-30 | 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 | 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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