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 survey data about manufacturers collected by the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, the seasonally unadjusted diffusion index for vendor lead times (share of CEOs seeing a future increase minus share forecasting a decrease) was 5.0 in January 2026, compared to 8.0 in December 2025.
Sample. There are 347 observations overall in the monthly series shown in the graph above. The series covers the time range going from January 1997 to January 2026.
History. Here's a glimpse of some simple statistics calculated on the full sample: the diffusion index hit a trough of -31.0 in December 2022; it recorded its maximum of 46.0 in May 2021; it had a mean value of 5.3.
Latest values
| Date | Value - Percentage points |
|---|---|
| 2025-11-30 | 8.0 |
| 2025-12-31 | 8.0 |
| 2026-01-31 | 5.0 |
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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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