Anchored VWAP vs Accumulation/Distribution
Michael Whitman
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Trading since 2017, full-time since 2020
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Published 2026-09-09
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Updated
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Reviewed
Anchored VWAP is the volume-weighted average price since a starting bar you pick, which makes it a price an order can sit at. Marc Chaikin's accumulation/distribution line is a running total of volume, scaled by where each close sat inside its bar's range, so it has no price units at all.
Both tools mix price with traded shares, and both depend on where you start counting. One turns that mix into a price level. The other turns it into a running score with no price meaning, and on SPY that score rose far more often than the price did.
What each one is
Anchored VWAP is an average price. Starting from a bar you pick, it multiplies every bar’s typical price (high plus low plus close, over three) by the shares traded, then divides by the total volume since that bar. StockCharts describes it as the ordinary VWAP formula with a start the chartist chooses, and the result is always in dollars. Anchored VWAP covers the anchor choice.
The accumulation/distribution line is a running tally. Marc Chaikin’s indicator scores each bar from +1 (close at the high) to -1 (close at the low), multiplies that score by the bar’s volume and adds the result to a running total. Accumulation/distribution covers the multiplier, and the OBV indicator covers the cruder all-or-nothing version.
So one is a level and the other is a direction. The A/D line’s value depends on how much history the chart loaded, whereas the anchored line’s value is a price anyone can check.
Where they differ
What you can do with the number. Anchored VWAP can carry a limit order, a stop beyond it or a distance for sizing. The A/D line can only be read for its slope.
What each one weighs. The anchored line weights every bar’s typical price by its full volume. The A/D line keeps only part of each bar’s volume, the part set by where the close landed, so a bar closing in the middle of its range adds nearly nothing.
Where the judgment sits. The anchored line needs a start date and changes completely with it. The A/D line has no setting, although its slope over any stretch still depends on which stretch you read.
What a gap does. A session that opens far from the prior close moves the anchored line through its typical price. The A/D line sees only the bar’s own range, so the gap itself never enters it.
Which one to use: Anchored VWAP or Accumulation/Distribution?
Use anchored VWAP when you need a price. Anchored to a quarter’s start, an earnings day or a low, it names the average price paid since that bar, and orders can rest there.
Use the A/D line when the question is how closes sat inside their bars since the same anchor. A falling line while price holds above the anchored average says the closes have been landing in the lower half of their ranges.
Use both on one chart only with the same start date. Reading the A/D line’s slope since your anchor, rather than over whatever the chart happened to load, keeps the two answers about the same stretch.
And weigh an A/D rise lightly when price is below the anchored line. On SPY that pairing was common, as the next section shows.
Quarter by quarter: what SPY’s two lines said
The test. For every calendar quarter from the first quarter of 1994 to the third quarter of 2026, the anchored line started on the quarter’s first session. On the quarter’s last session two questions were asked: did SPY close above or below its anchored line, and was the A/D line higher or lower than just before the anchor?
They agreed on 103 of 131 quarters (78.63%). The link between the two answers was far stronger than chance (Fisher exact test, p below 0.0001), which is expected: both are built from the same bars.
The disagreements were lopsided. Of the 87 quarters that ended above the anchored line, the A/D line fell in only 5. Of the 44 that ended below it, the A/D line still rose in 23 and fell in 21. The A/D line climbed in 105 of the 131 quarters, while SPY’s close was higher than the prior quarter’s in 93.
One of the five: SPY’s third quarter of 2026
The third quarter of 2026 was one of the rare five. Anchored on 1 July 2026 (typical price $745.86), the line stood at $758.44 on 30 September and SPY closed above it and higher on the quarter. The A/D line fell by about 24.0 million shares over the same 64 sessions, and only 26 of them closed in the upper half of their range.
The original data
The sample. SPY’s daily record on Yahoo Finance, which runs 29 January 1993 to 2 October 2026, with highs, lows, closes and volume. Quarters run from the first quarter of 1994 to the third quarter of 2026, all complete; across the 131 the A/D line rose 105 times and the close finished above the anchored line 87 times.
The formulas. Anchored VWAP = cumulative (typical price x shares) divided by cumulative shares, from the quarter’s first session, as StockCharts gives VWAP and anchored VWAP (read 4 October 2026). A/D, also as StockCharts gives it: each bar’s multiplier = (close minus low, less high minus close) divided by the bar’s range (StockCharts gives no rule for a bar with no range, and SPY had none in this file); money flow volume = multiplier times volume; A/D = running total. The quarter’s A/D change is the last session’s value minus the value on the session before the anchor.
What is not measured. Nothing here asks what SPY did after a quarter ended, so no reading is shown to forecast anything. One index fund is one market, and the A/D line’s upward lean may not hold elsewhere. Every quarter, both answers and the price change are in the SPY quarterly anchored line and A/D file.
When it fails
The usual failure is reading a rising A/D line as support for a long position while price sits below the anchored average. On SPY that pairing came up in 23 quarters, more than half of all quarters that ended below the line. The tally only sees where each close sat inside its own bar; it never sees the distance between one bar and the next. A trader reading it as buying pressure would have been reading the shape of the bars, not the quarter’s direction.
A second failure is anchoring after the fact. A start date picked because the line now looks good on the chart answers nothing.
A third is treating the A/D line’s level as meaningful. It depends on the first bar loaded.
A fourth is reading the two as independent checks. They come from the same bars, which is why they agreed most of the time.
And a fifth is trusting either one on a currency pair traded off-exchange. There, volume is one venue’s count, so both lines are weighted by a partial figure.
Related
Anchored VWAP covers the start-date choice that sets the whole line. Accumulation/distribution covers Chaikin’s close-position multiplier. And the OBV indicator covers the version that counts all of a bar’s volume up or down.
Anchor the line to an event you can name before you look at the A/D line, and read the A/D line for its direction since that same date. On SPY its rises were common enough that only a fall really stood out.
— Michael Whitman
This page is educational, not financial advice. Test every idea on your own charts before risking money.