Trend / Momentum
VWAP Reclaim / Reject
Price crossing back over VWAP looks like a signal every time. The only question that matters is whether that cross holds or snaps back within the next few bars. Call each one before you see the answer.
Call the tape
Hit play and watch a session build one bar at a time against its running VWAP. Every time price genuinely crosses the VWAP line, the tape pauses and asks what you'd do: take the signal in that direction, or skip it. You only find out whether it held or whipsawed after you've made the call.
No calls yet. Press play and wait for the first cross.
How it works
- VWAP is the session's running fair-price line. It's the volume-weighted average of every trade since the open, so it moves slower than price and reflects where the real volume has actually transacted, not just where the last print happened to be.
- A reclaim is price closing back above VWAP after trading below it. Read as the buyers stepping back in above the average cost of everyone who's traded today. A reject is the mirror image: price closing back below VWAP after trading above it, read as sellers taking control.
- The signal isn't the cross, it's what happens after the cross. A cross that keeps extending in the new direction is a genuine shift in control. A cross that immediately snaps back through the line in the next bar or two is a whipsaw, and it's common, especially in the first and last thirty minutes of a session when volume is thin relative to the moves.
- Distance from VWAP matters as much as direction. A reclaim that closes just barely above the line carries less conviction than one that closes a full volatility band above it. The shaded band on the chart above is exactly that: a rough one-standard-deviation zone around VWAP built from the session's own bar-to-bar volatility.
Where this breaks
Chop around the line produces serial whipsaws
When a session has no real directional conviction, price oscillates a few cents on either side of VWAP for long stretches, throwing off cross after cross that all look identical to a genuine reclaim or reject in real time. Taking every one of them in a flat, low-conviction tape is how this strategy bleeds out in small losses, not one big one. The fix isn't a better VWAP, it's reading the wider context (opening range, prior day's close, overall trend) before deciding whether a given cross is worth taking at all.