Anchored VWAP vs Chaikin Money Flow
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 a volume-weighted average of price that starts at a chosen bar, so its window gets longer with every session. Chaikin money flow sums close-position-weighted volume over a fixed 20 sessions and divides by those sessions' volume, so it is a ratio from -1 to +1 whose window never grows.
Both indicators weight price by the shares traded, and they sound like neighbors. The difference that shows up on a chart is age. One line is built on everything since an anchor, so it gets heavier every session; the other only ever looks back 20 sessions, so it never does.
What each one is
Anchored VWAP is a price. From a bar you pick, it totals typical price (high, low, close over three) times shares for every bar, then divides by the shares. StockCharts calls it the standard VWAP formula with a chosen first bar and the latest bar as the last. Anchored VWAP covers the anchor.
Chaikin money flow is a ratio. Marc Chaikin’s indicator gives each bar a score between +1 (a close at the high) and -1 (a close at the low), multiplies by volume, sums 20 sessions of that and divides by the same 20 sessions' volume. Chaikin money flow covers the steps, and accumulation/distribution covers the running total it is built from.
One window grows and the other slides. Whereas the anchored line adds every new session to an ever-larger pile, the money flow drops its oldest session each time it adds a new one.
Where they differ
How fast each can move. A new session is one bar against a few days of volume when the anchor is fresh, and one bar against months of volume when it is old. The money flow’s new session always sits against the same 20.
What the number is. The anchored line is in dollars and can carry an order. The money flow is a fraction with no units, so it can be ranked across a list of stocks but cannot be bought at.
What each forgets. The anchored line never forgets anything after its anchor. The money flow forgets everything older than 20 sessions, including the event you may have anchored to.
Where the judgment sits. For the anchored line it is the start date. For the money flow it is the 20-session length, which StockCharts gives as typically 20 or 21 days.
Which one to use: Anchored VWAP or Chaikin Money Flow?
Use anchored VWAP when the question is the average price paid since a named event. An earnings day, a gap or a quarter’s first session gives a level everyone can see.
Use Chaikin money flow when you want the last four weeks only. It is just as quick in the third month as in the first, because its window never grows.
Use both when you can say why the anchor still matters. A two-month-old line moves slowly, so pair it with a reading that still reacts.
And re-anchor rather than wait when the anchored line has gone flat. On SPY, its typical step late in a quarter was about a quarter of its first-week step, as the next section shows.
Same quarters, two speeds: SPY since 1994
The test. Every calendar quarter from 1994 to the third quarter of 2026, a line was anchored at the quarter’s first session. For each later session in the quarter, the size of the anchored line’s change was taken as a share of that day’s close, and the money flow’s change as a plain difference.
The anchored line slowed; the money flow did not. Median step in sessions 1 to 5 after the anchor: 0.1678% of the close for the anchored line, 0.0309 for the money flow. Sessions 6 to 20: 0.0920% and 0.0327. Sessions 21 to 40: 0.0609% and 0.0320. Sessions 41 to 63: 0.0463% and 0.0337. Setting the first week at 100, the anchored line’s step fell to 55, 36 and 28; the money flow’s went to 106, 103 and 109.
Their sides lined up more as the quarter aged. A close above the anchored line and a money flow above zero (or below and below) matched on 67.33% of sessions in the first five, 72.72% in sessions 6 to 20, 77.14% in sessions 21 to 40 and 75.44% in sessions 41 to 63.
A flattening line: SPY’s second quarter of 2026
The second quarter of 2026 shows the slowdown. Anchored on 1 April (typical price $655.59), the line moved 0.159% of the close on 2 April. On 29 June, 60 sessions after the anchor, it moved 0.037%, while the money flow’s change that day (0.0386) was bigger than on 2 April (0.0085). By 30 June SPY closed at $746.77, well above the anchored line at $722.92, yet the money flow stood at -0.10.
The original data
The sample. SPY daily history from Yahoo Finance (high, low, close, share volume) running from 29 January 1993 to 2 October 2026. Steps are counted from the first quarter of 1994; the bucket counts are 655, 1,965, 2,620 and 2,870 days.
The formulas. Both follow StockCharts, whose pages were read on 4 October 2026. Anchored VWAP = sum of typical price x shares since the anchor / sum of shares since the anchor, starting at the quarter’s first session. Money flow close-position score = (2 x close - high - low) / (high - low), (SPY had no bar with zero range); Chaikin money flow = 20-session sum of multiplier times volume over the 20-session sum of volume.
What is not measured. This compares how the two lines move, not what SPY did next, so neither reading is shown to predict anything. Quarter starts are a mechanical anchor; a trader’s event anchors would age the same way but start on other days. Every session’s age, both values and both steps are in the SPY quarterly anchor and money flow file.
When it fails
The failure is trusting an old anchored line to react to what is happening now. Two months after the anchor, one session’s trading is a sliver of the volume in the average, so the line barely moves even on a large day. On SPY its median step in the quarter’s last stretch was about a quarter of the first week’s. A trader waiting for that line to turn is waiting for weeks of new volume to outweigh months of old volume, and reads the delay as the market agreeing with the old level.
A second failure is reading a money flow extreme as information about the anchored event. After 20 sessions the money flow no longer contains that event at all.
A third is anchoring to a date chosen because the line now fits the chart. That answers nothing.
A fourth is comparing money flow values from a quiet window and a busy one as if equal, when one sits on far less volume.
And a fifth is applying either to an over-the-counter currency feed, whose share count is one dealer’s.
Related
Anchored VWAP covers the start date that sets the line. Chaikin money flow covers the 20-session sum and the division. And accumulation/distribution covers the running total behind both weightings.
Decide how old your anchor is allowed to get before you lean on it. A line that barely moves after two months is describing the past two months, while the money flow reading only ever describes the last 20 sessions.
— Michael Whitman
This page is educational, not financial advice. Test every idea on your own charts before risking money.