A moving average (MA) is the simple (or exponential) average of price over N periods; VWAP weights price by volume and resets each day. They can look similar on a chart, but they measure different things — and for an intraday trader, VWAP is usually the more relevant line.
How they're built
A moving average just averages the closing prices of the last N bars — every bar counts equally, and it's a rolling line that carries across days (a 20-period MA always looks back 20 bars). VWAP is different: it averages price weighted by volume (bars with more volume count more), and it resets at the start of each session, so it reflects today's fair value from the open. VWAP asks “what's the average price everyone paid today?”; an MA asks “what's the recent average price?”
Why the difference matters intraday
For day trading, VWAP's two features make it more meaningful: volume-weighting ties it to where real trading happened (so it's a genuine institutional benchmark — big players measure fills against it), and the daily reset makes it about today's auction, not last week's. That's why above/below VWAP is such a clean intraday bias. A moving average is more useful for trend context over multiple days; VWAP is the intraday fair-value line. They complement rather than compete.
A moving average smooths price over time; VWAP anchors to where volume actually traded today. For intraday, the volume-weighted, session-reset line is the one that speaks.
The quick takeaway
VWAP is volume-weighted and resets daily (the intraday fair-value benchmark); a moving average is a simple rolling average (better for multi-day trend). For scalping, VWAP is usually the more meaningful line. NoVo puts VWAP on the cockpit map alongside the dealer levels — the institutional intraday benchmark, front and center.