Volume Profile vs Anchored VWAP
Michael Whitman
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Trading since 2017, full-time since 2020
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YouTube creator, 137K subscribers
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Published 2026-09-08
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Updated
Volume profile draws a histogram of how much traded at each price over a window. Anchored VWAP averages price weighted by volume from a chosen event, so pointed at the same starting point one gives a distribution and the other its center of gravity.
Both can be measured from the same starting point. One returns a single number and the other returns the distribution that number averages, which makes them complements rather than rivals.
What each one is
Volume profile draws a histogram of how much traded at each price over a chosen window. Volume profile covers it.
Anchored VWAP averages price weighted by volume from a chosen event — a results release, a gap, a swing extreme. Anchored VWAP covers it.
Pointed at the same anchor they describe one thing. The average is the profile’s center of gravity, which means the two together are a summary and its detail.
Where they differ
How much survives. A profile shows peaks, gaps and shape. An average reports one number and everything about the shape is lost.
What a two-peaked window does. The profile shows both busy areas. The average sits between them, describing a price where comparatively little traded.
How each is read. A profile for its peak and its value band; the anchored average as a level price is above or below.
Whether other people share it. Neither is standardized, since both depend on where you started them — which is a difference from the session-reset version of the average.
Where they agree
Both depend on where you start them. The anchor and the profile window are the same kind of choice, and both can be moved after seeing what happened.
Both depend entirely on the volume feed. On a fragmented market or a spot pair the reported figure covers part of the trading, so both are partial in the same way.
Both describe the past. Neither contains a statement about what happens next.
And neither supplies a stop. The busiest price in a profile and the anchored average are both descriptions of where trading happened, and a stop belongs at structure rather than at a summary.
Which one to use: Volume Profile or Anchored VWAP?
Use the anchored average when you want one number since an event. The average price paid since a results release is a clean, single fact you can act around.
Use the profile when the shape matters. A window with two distinct areas of activity is a completely different picture from one balanced area, and only the profile distinguishes them.
Use both from the same anchor. That is the strongest arrangement — the line for the quick read and the distribution when you want to know what is behind it.
And when the anchor was chosen because the line looked right, use neither. That is fitting, and it applies equally to both tools.
Why the anchor is the shared weakness
Because moving it changes everything. Two anchors a few bars apart produce a different line and a different profile, and nothing on the chart records which was chosen first.
And because the choice is invisible afterwards. A published session reset can be checked by anybody; a private anchor cannot, so the discipline is entirely yours.
What makes an anchor defensible
It marks an event, not a price. A release, a gap, a policy decision — something that happened rather than a level you liked the look of.
It was chosen before you saw what followed. Anchoring after the reaction is describing history and calling it analysis.
It is written down. Which event, on which date, so the same rule can be applied next time.
And it is not moved. An anchor adjusted after a losing trade is a parameter fitted to the past, and the fitting leaves no trace.
What to check before using either
The volume feed. Both are built on volume, so a partial count produces a precise-looking picture of a fraction of trading.
The anchor, written down. Same rule for both tools, decided before the outcome is visible.
What the reading means to you. Above or below the average, at the peak or outside the band — each is a different rule with its own trade count.
And the stop. Neither provides one, and the distance has to come from price structure and from how far the instrument’s widest ordinary bars travel.
The original data
Volume profile appears in 228 titles at a median of 13,034 across 110 channels, and anchored VWAP in 29 at a median of 14,972 across 26.
228 videos on one at 13,034 and 29 on the other at 14,972. Eight times the coverage and a similar audience per video — the anchored average is barely taught and holds its interest per upload, which is the profile of an under-served subject.
The average can sit in an empty middle. Very little may have traded at that price since the anchor — so treating it as a level participants transacted at is exactly backwards.
How the videos on each are made
On length, volume profile gets the fuller treatment: a median of 14.1 minutes a video against 9.8 for anchored VWAP, a gap of about 4.3 minutes. The share below 50,000 views is 71% for volume profile and 72% for anchored VWAP. Counting titles framed as teaching (how to, tutorial, explained and similar), volume profile comes to 51% and anchored VWAP to 52%. Only one title in the set names both.
When it fails
The failure is trading the anchored average as a level when the distribution is two-sided. Price returns to the line, which reads as the average price paid since the event, so a position is taken expecting a reaction. The profile shows the average sitting between two busy areas with a hollow middle — almost nothing traded there, so there are no resting orders and no reason for price to pause.
The second failure is moving the anchor until it fits. That leaves no evidence.
A third is using either on a partial volume feed. The input is a fraction.
A fourth is comparing profiles across different windows. The shapes are not comparable.
A fifth is treating either as a forecast. Both summarize the past.
And a sixth is stopping at an average. An anchored VWAP is a line price crosses routinely, so a stop parked on it is hit by ordinary movement rather than by the idea failing.
Related
Volume profile covers the full distribution. Anchored VWAP covers the average from a chosen event. And VWAP covers the scheduled version everybody shares.
Anchor both to the same event and you have the average price paid since then and the full picture of where that trading happened. The average is the summary; the profile is what it summarizes, and the two together are more useful than either.
— Michael Whitman
This page is educational, not financial advice. Test every idea on your own charts before risking money.