United States Richmond Fed Manufacturing Index

Last Release

Oct 31, 2024

Actual

-14

Units In

Points

-21

Frequency

Monthly

Next Release

Nov 26, 2024

Time to Release

1 Months 2 Days 14 Hours

Highest	Lowest	Average	Date Range	Source
28 Mar 2004	-45 Apr 2020	2.33 Points	1993-2024	Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond

The Richmond Manufacturing Index measures the conditions of the manufacturing sector for the District of Columbia, Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, and most of West Virginia. The index is derived from a survey of 190 manufacturing plants and based on three individual index with the following weights: Shipments (33 percent), New Orders (40 percent) and Employment (27 percent). The index can range between +100 and -100; a reading above zero indicates expansion, while below zero suggests a contraction.

Latest Updates

The composite manufacturing index in the US Fifth District was at -14 in October of 2024, pointing to less pessimism than the -21 in the previous month, but completing twelve consecutive negative figures to mark a whole year of declining activity. The slight improvement was owed to a slowdown in the decline of new orders (-17 vs -23 in September), driving another decline in shipments (-8 vs -18) despite another month of depletion in the backlog of orders (-14 vs -16). In the meantime, capital expenditures accelerated their downturn (-23 vs -13) and the number of employees continued to decline (-17 vs -22), although wages accelerated (16 vs 15). On the price front, input costs decelerated (2.7 vs 3.4), but manufacturers still raised their output charges at a higher magnitude (1.7 vs 1.6).