Shooting Star Candlestick Pattern

One candle, one story — buyers pushed, and gave almost all of it back

A shooting star is a single candlestick with a long upper wick and a small body near the bottom of its range, forming after an advance: buyers drove price sharply higher during the session and sellers took back almost all of the gain before the close.

Chart data

#	Open	High	Low	Close
1	90	92.6	89.4	92.2
2	92.2	94.8	91.6	94.3
3	94.3	95	92.9	93.4
4	93.4	96.6	93	96.1
5	96.1	99	95.7	98.5
6	98.5	101.3	98	100.8
7	100.8	101.6	99.6	100.1
8	100.1	103.6	99.8	103.2
9	103.2	106.3	102.8	105.8
10	106.6	112	105.2	105.4
11	105	105.5	102.4	102.8
12	102.8	103.3	100.1	100.6
13	100.6	101.2	98	98.4
14	98.4	99.6	97.8	99.1
15	99.1	99.4	96	96.4
16	96.4	96.9	93.8	94.2
17	94.2	95	92.6	93

At a glance

What timeframe does it work on?

Shooting stars are common on every timeframe and least meaningful on the lowest ones, where a long upper wick can be a single spike in thin liquidity rather than a genuine rejection of higher prices. On daily charts the wick represents a full session of failed buying, which carries more weight than a brief intraday spike. The identical shape after a decline is called an inverted hammer, so establishing the prior trend is essential — it changes what the candle means.

Anatomy of the pattern

• Long upper wick — The defining feature, conventionally at least twice the height of the body. This is the ground buyers took during the session and then gave back — the whole signal lives in that rejection.
• Small body near the bottom — Open and close finish close together in the lower portion of the range. The body's colour matters much less than its position; some traders prefer a red body, since a close below the open shows sellers finished ahead, but a green-bodied shooting star is still a shooting star.
• Little or no lower wick — A shooting star should close near its low. A long lower wick as well makes it a high-wave or long-legged candle, which says indecision rather than rejection of higher prices.
• Position after an advance — The candle must arrive after an uptrend or into resistance. The same shape mid-range is noise, and after a decline it is an inverted hammer with the opposite implication.

How to identify it

1. The upper wick is at least twice the length of the body — many traders require three times.
2. The body sits in the lower third of the candle's total high-to-low range.
3. The lower wick is small or absent, so the close is near the low.
4. The candle appears after a run of advancing prices, not in the middle of a range.
5. Strongest when the high of the wick reaches into a level that already mattered, such as prior resistance or a previous swing high (not required).

How to trade it

Entry. Most approaches wait for the next candle to close below the shooting star's low, treating the shooting star as the setup and the following candle as the trigger. Entering at the shooting star's close is possible but takes every failure at full size, and shooting stars fail often enough that the confirmation is usually worth its cost in entry price.

Stop. Above the shooting star's high. That high is the whole premise of the trade — the level buyers reached and could not hold — so a stop beneath it has no logical basis. Long-wicked shooting stars therefore imply wide stops, and the correct response to a stop that is too wide is a smaller position.

Target. The pattern gives no target. Use the structure around it: the nearest support, the previous swing low, the bottom of the range it is reversing within, or a fixed multiple of risk. A shooting star says something about the last session, not about the next twenty.

What invalidates it

• There was no prior uptrend. Then it is not a reversal signal at all — and if the preceding move was downward, the same shape is an inverted hammer, a potential bullish reversal that needs confirmation.
• Price closes back above the shooting star's high. The rejection the candle advertised did not hold.
• The candle also has a long lower wick. That is a long-legged or high-wave candle, signalling indecision on both sides rather than rejection of higher prices specifically.
• The wick is long only because of a data spike or an illiquid session. Check whether the high is plausible against neighbouring bars before treating it as real rejected buying.

Often confused with

Shooting Star vs Evening Star: what's the difference?

A shooting star is one candle with a long upper wick and a small body near its low. It can appear as the evening star's middle candle, but alone it is only a warning; the evening star also needs the long red candle that closes deep into the first green body.

Shooting Star vs Gravestone Doji: what's the difference?

A gravestone doji opens and closes at or almost at the low, so it has essentially no body. A shooting star has a small but visible real body near the low. Both are bearish after an advance; the doji is the more extreme case of the same rejection.

Shooting Star vs Hammer: what's the difference?

A hammer is the mirror image: long lower wick, body near the high, after a decline (bullish). A shooting star has a long upper wick and body near the low after an advance. Check the wick first; an upper wick after a decline is an inverted hammer.

Shooting Star vs Hanging Man: what's the difference?

Both are single-candle warnings after an advance, but the long wick points the other way. A shooting star's wick rises above a body near the low, so its close already shows buyers beaten; a hanging man's wick hangs below a body near the high, so its close still looks bullish.

Shooting Star vs Inverted Hammer: what's the difference?

Identical shape: long upper wick, small body near the low. Only the prior trend differs. After an advance it is a shooting star (bearish); after a decline it is an inverted hammer, a possible bullish reversal that needs confirmation. Check the trend, not the candle.

How reliable is the shooting star pattern?

Candlestick references describe it as a weak signal on its own that is best read together with confirmation and location: at resistance, at a prior swing high, or after an extended advance. Context does most of the work: the same candle ranges from meaningless (an isolated wick mid-trend, which often just pauses the move) to useful (at resistance after a sharp rally, ideally on heavy volume, and confirmed by a close below its low). Any success rate you see quoted depends on the trend filter and wick-to-body ratio used, so treat such figures with caution.

References

• Thomas N. Bulkowski. Encyclopedia of Candlestick Charts . Wiley , 2008 . ISBN 978-0470182017.
• Steve Nison. Japanese Candlestick Charting Techniques . Prentice Hall Press , 2001 . ISBN 978-0735201811.

Frequently asked questions