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Technical Indicators

Fri, Jun 6th, 2025
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The descriptions, formulas, and parameters shown below apply to both Interactive Charts and Snapshot Charts, unless noted. Please note that some of the parameters may be slightly different between the two versions of charts.
Studies noted with * are available only in Snapshot Charts and those noted with ^ are available only in Interactive Charts.
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VWAP (Volume Weighted Average Price)

Indicator Type: Overlay

Chart Type: Interactive Charts Only

Volume Weighted Average Price (VWAP) is a technical analysis tool used to measure the average price weighted by volume. This means that price levels with more volume have more importance than price levels with less volume.

VWAP is typically used with intraday charts as a way to determine the general direction of intraday prices. It's similar to a moving average in that when price is above VWAP, prices are rising and when price is below VWAP, prices are falling. VWAP is primarily used by technical analysts to identify market trend.

VWAP

VWAP can now be used over a Session or any time frame: Week, Month, Year, Decade or Century. For example, if you select Month as the calculation period, the sum of the values from the VWAP formula will accumulate starting from the first trading day of each month. Session means the study will use the same aggregation as the underlying for computation, with a minimum being Daily. Many traders use the VWAP study for Intraday charts, where Session also uses Daily data for portions of its computation. If the underlying chart data is Daily, then you can get more meaningful results by choosing an Anchor Period of Week (for a Weekly chart, choose "Month" as your Anchor Period, and so on).

Notes: The VWAP study parameters actually contain three plots. When using the default "Session" as the Anchor Period, the values are such that we end up drawing three curves on top of each other. Hence the default color, green, is derived from the third curve of the three.

VWAP Parameters

When choosing something other than Session for the Anchor Period, the study can also display one or two standard deviation plots. The computation looks at volume across time increments for the Anchor Period. So if the anchor is Week and underlying is a Daily chart, then the Standard Deviation is calculated from the VWAP values, across a week.

Calculation

There are five steps in calculating VWAP:

  1. Calculate the Typical Price for the period. 
    [(High + Low + Close)/3)]
  2. Multiply the Typical Price by the period Volume. 
    (Typical Price x Volume)
  3. Create a Cumulative Total of Typical Price. 
    Cumulative(Typical Price x Volume)
  4. Create a Cumulative Total of Volume. 
    Cumulative(Volume)
  5. Divide the Cumulative Totals. 
    VWAP = Cumulative(Typical Price x Volume) / Cumulative(Volume)

Parameters

  • Source (HLC/3): Choose from Open, High, Low, Close, HL/2, HLC/3, OHLC/4, HLCC/4
  • Anchor Period (Session): Choose from Session, Week, Month, Quarter, Year, Decade, Century
  • Std Dev 1st Multiplier (1): When using an Anchor Period other than "Session", you can show another plot that is (n) standard deviations from the session. The study's parameters provide color chips to view the upper/lower values separate from the calculated VWAP value.
  • Std Dev 2nd Multiplier (1): When using an Anchor Period other than "Session", you can show another plot that is (n) standard deviations from the session. The study's parameters provide color chips to view the upper/lower values separate from the calculated VWAP value.
  • Offset (0): Changing this number will move the VWAP either Forwards or Backwards, relative to the current market. Zero is the default.

Source: www.tradingview.com/

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