ema for checking trend What Is an Exponential Moving Average (EMA)? An exponential moving average (EMA) is a type of moving average (MA) that places a greater weight and significance on the most recent data points. 1 The exponential moving average is also referred to as the exponentially weighted moving average. An exponentially weighted moving average reacts more significantly to recent price changes than a simple moving average simple moving average (SMA), which applies an equal weight to all observations in the period.