Does the VWAP and 9 EMA strategy work? We backtested it

Neither version passed. The trend version made -48.6% a year before costs and -99.1% after, and beat 0 of 200 random copies. The reclaim version made money before costs (32.3% a year) and lost it all to costs (-73.5%).

What people say

VWAP, the volume-weighted average price of the day, is pitched as the line institutions trade around. The popular setups pair it with a fast 9-period EMA: be long when price is above both, short when below both, or buy the moment price reclaims VWAP and ride it until it loses the 9 EMA.

• "I don't use a ton of indicators, mainly VWAP and 9 EMA" (r/options post, 24 Sep 2026)
• "A VWAP reclaim would look clean on the chart" (r/Daytrading post, 16 Sep 2026)

110 posts in five trading subreddits mentioned VWAP between 1 September and 5 October 2026. On YouTube, Mind Math Money's "Stop Guessing Entries. Use This VWAP Trading Strategy Instead." passed 82,000 views in five weeks, and BrandonTrades' "Ultimate VWAP Strategy for Day Trading" passed 17,000.

What we tested

Day traders run this on 1 to 5 minute stock and futures charts. Our harness has hourly crypto with real exchange volume, so VWAP is computed the proper way, from price and volume, restarting each UTC day. We wrote down two versions and the pass bar before running, and add one VWAP rule from an earlier batch.

• Long above session VWAP and the 9 EMA, short below both. VWAP restarts at 00:00 UTC each day. Hold a long while the hourly close is above both VWAP and the 9-hour EMA, a short while it is below both, and nothing when they disagree.
• VWAP reclaim, long only, exit on a close below the 9 EMA. Long only. Buy when the close moves from below VWAP to above it (the reclaim). Sell on a close below the 9 EMA, and by 23:00 UTC at the latest.
• Bounce off a rolling 20-hour VWAP (earlier run). Buy a dip below a rolling 20-hour VWAP and hold for the bounce. Reused from an earlier batch.

Results

One thing to know before reading the numbers. The benchmark is always fully invested, and from 2017 to early 2025 crypto rose a lot, so any rule that spends much of its time in cash trails it by a wide margin almost automatically. That is why we also compare each rule with 200 copies of itself: the same number of trades, the same holding times and the same costs, moved to random dates. Those copies are in the market exactly as much as the rule is, so they answer the fairer question: did the rule pick better moments than chance? The trend version is in the market most of the time, long or short, so its gap to the benchmark is about trading, not about sitting out.

The trend version sits to the left of every grey bars: random copies with the same trades did better.

What costs do to it

Crypto pays 0.10% a side plus a measured slippage for each coin; US stocks and ETFs pay 0.05% a side. The cost is charged every time the position changes, including a flip from long to short. This is where VWAP rules fall over. The trend version changed position 100,047 times in about seven and a half years across 8 coins, roughly every few hours. The reclaim version, which only buys, was positive before costs at 32.3% a year (the basket made 84.7%), and 39,677 trades of fees and slippage took it to -73.5%.

Why it did not hold up

VWAP is a useful reference for judging your own fills, which is what large traders use it for. As a signal, crossing it is common and mostly noise: price goes back and forth across a slow-moving average many times a day.

Adding the 9 EMA cuts some of the noise but not enough to pay for the trading. Every flip pays the spread and the fee, and the rule flips a lot.

The reclaim version looked better before costs, but it still trailed the basket it was trading, and it trailed it by more after costs. A rule that only works with free trading does not work.

What a beginner should take away

• VWAP tells you the average price paid today. It does not tell you what happens next.
• Before trusting any intraday rule, count how often it trades and multiply by your real cost per trade.
• If a rule only looks good on a chart you marked up afterwards, test it on data you had not seen. The r/Daytrading post above is a good honest example of finding that out.

Try it yourself

The Lab has no VWAP, but it can test the 9 EMA half of this on daily bars: on QQQ, set the entry to price crosses above ema(9) and the exit to price crosses below ema(9). Watch how many trades it makes and what the costs do.

• Open the Backtest Lab with QQQ loaded (free account)

The Lab tests one rule on one stock, fills at the next open and compares against holding that stock after costs, so its number will not match the basket results above.

• See a full worked example (free, no account)
• Start lesson 1 of the course (free)

A pass opens every course lesson, the full research tabs and more Lab runs on all 50 Lab stocks. It does not include trade signals or a system that wins.

• What a pass includes

General information only. It doesn't consider your objectives, finances or needs. Tickfloor holds no financial services licence and never places trades.

More trending techniques we tested

• Does the opening range breakout work? We tested the version everyone is posting
• Does the ICT Asia session liquidity sweep work? We backtested it
• Does the 9/21 EMA crossover work? We tested it on thousands of trades
• Bitcoin's 200-day line, the golden cross and Uptober: we tested all three
• The 5 most-talked-about trading techniques of autumn 2026, tested
• Every popular rule we tested

How we set the rules, costs and pass bar before running anything: the Tickfloor testing standard. The wider record is on the evidence page.