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. According to recent survey data about manufacturing firms in the Fifth District, the seasonally unadjusted diffusion index for vendor lead times (share of CEOs seeing a future increase minus share forecasting a decrease) stood at 12.0 in July 2026, the same as in June.
Sample. There are 353 observations overall in the monthly time series shown in the plot above. The time range covered by the series goes from January 1997 to July 2026.
History. Take a look at some summary statistics calculated on the full sample: the diffusion index was equal on average to 5.4; it reached a minimum of -31.0 in December 2022; it hit a maximum of 46.0 in May 2021.
Latest values
| Date | Value - Percentage points |
|---|---|
| 2026-05-31 | 17.0 |
| 2026-06-30 | 12.0 |
| 2026-07-31 | 12.0 |
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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) |
Series in the same data set
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