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 based 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) was 6.0 in September 2025, versus 11.0 in August 2025.
Sample. There are 259 records in the monthly series presented in the figure above. The series covers the time span stretching from January 1997 to September 2025.
History. Here's a snapshot of some descriptive statistics we computed on the whole sample: the diffusion index achieved a maximum of 46.0 in May 2021; it recorded a bottom of -31.0 in February 2022; it had a mean value of 5.4.
Latest values
| Date | Value - Percentage points |
|---|---|
| 2025-07-31 | 6.0 |
| 2025-08-31 | 11.0 |
| 2025-09-30 | 6.0 |
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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) |