The shooting star candlestick pattern is a single bearish reversal candle: a small body near the low of the bar and a long upper wick at least twice the body’s length. It shows buyers pushing price higher, then sellers driving it back down before the close. It only deserves attention after a rise and at a level where sellers have a reason to appear.
Quick answer: what is a shooting star candlestick pattern?
A shooting star is a candle with a small body near its low, little or no lower wick and a long upper wick, forming after a rise. It shows a rally rejected within one session. Traders treat it as a warning of a possible top and usually wait for a break of its low before acting.
What a shooting star looks like
If wicks and bodies are new to you, start with how to read candlestick charts for beginners. A textbook shooting star has four features:
- A small real body sitting in the lower third of the candle’s range.
- A long upper wick, usually at least twice the length of the body.
- Little or no lower wick, so the close sits near the low of the bar.
- A rise before it: without a move up, there is nothing to reverse.
The body can be red or green. A red body, closing below the open, reads a little stronger, but in our experience the length of the wick and the location matter far more than the colour.
What the candle tells you about buyers and sellers
Read the candle as a short story. The session opens, buyers push price well above the open, and for a while the rally looks healthy. Then sellers step in hard enough to drive price back down, and it closes near where it started.
That rejection matters because the buyers who chased the high are now holding losing positions. If the next candle breaks the shooting star’s low, many of them may sell to get out, which adds to the move down. A single candle shows a failed push, not a change of trend, so we treat it as a clue rather than an answer.
Shooting star vs inverted hammer, hammer and pin bar
The shooting star and the inverted hammer are the same shape. The only difference is location: after a rise the candle is a shooting star, a possible top; after a fall it is an inverted hammer, a possible bottom where buyers tested higher prices. You cannot name the candle without looking at the move before it.
Its bullish mirror image is a long lower wick at the end of a fall, covered in our guide to the hammer candlestick pattern and how to trade it. Price action traders also call the shooting star a bearish pin bar, and our pin bar trading strategy with entry, stop and target applies the same logic in both directions.
| Candle | Shape | Where it forms | Possible meaning |
|---|---|---|---|
| Shooting star | Long upper wick, small body low | After a rise | Rally rejected |
| Inverted hammer | Long upper wick, small body low | After a fall | Buyers testing higher |
| Hammer | Long lower wick, small body high | After a fall | Selling rejected |
| Gravestone doji | Long upper wick, no body | After a rise | Rally fully rejected |
When the open and close are almost identical, the candle becomes a gravestone doji. Our guide to the doji candlestick pattern and what it means explains that family of candles.
Where a shooting star candlestick pattern matters
A long upper wick in the middle of a range is just a noisy candle. We only pay attention when the shooting star candlestick pattern forms where sellers had a reason to show up:
- At a supply zone drawn with our method for how to draw and trade supply and demand zones.
- At a resistance level ranked with our guide to which key levels count and how to rank them.
- After an extended run up, where buyers may be running out of fuel.
- On 4-hour or daily charts, where each candle carries enough trading to mean something.
Be sceptical of anyone quoting a precise success rate for this candle. We have not found a reliable, sourced figure, so we treat the shooting star as one piece of evidence that has to agree with the level and the wider trend.
How to trade a shooting star: entry, stop and target
- Location: the candle forms at a level you marked before it appeared.
- Trigger: wait for a later candle to break below the shooting star’s low. The wick shows rejection; the break shows follow-through.
- Stop: a few points above the top of the upper wick. If price returns above the high, the rejection has failed. Our guide on where to place a stop loss with price action explains buffers.
- Target: the next demand zone or support below. If it sits closer than twice the stop distance, we skip the trade.
- Size: set the stake from the stop distance using how to calculate position size for forex, CFDs and spread bets.
Remember that a stop order does not fix your exit price. As Investor.gov explains in its definition of a stop order, it becomes a market order once the stop price is reached, and the fill may differ from the stop price in a fast-moving market.
Worked example: a shooting star at a daily supply zone
All figures are hypothetical. On a £10,000 account we risk 1% per trade, which is £100. A stock index has rallied for six sessions into a daily supply zone around 7,900.
- Shooting star: the candle opens at 7,850, spikes to 7,920 inside the zone and closes at 7,842, with a low of 7,835.
- Trigger: the next session trades below 7,835, so we sell at 7,830.
- Stop: 7,930, just above the wick, which is 100 points away. £100 divided by 100 points is £1 per point on a spread bet.
- Target: a demand zone at 7,630, 200 points away, so the potential gain is about £200, twice the risk.
If price rallies back through 7,930, we lose about £100 plus the spread. Spread bets are leveraged, so a gap through the stop could make the loss larger than planned.
Common mistakes with the shooting star
- Shorting every long upper wick. Away from a level, the candle carries little meaning.
- Fighting a strong trend. In a powerful rally, one rejected candle is often just a pause.
- Ignoring the location rule. The same shape after a fall is an inverted hammer, not a shooting star.
- Stops inside the wick. Normal noise can take out a stop placed below the high.
- No room to the target. A neat candle with support just below is still a poor trade. Compare it with the engulfing candle at support and resistance, which often leaves clearer room.
Frequently asked questions
Is a shooting star bullish or bearish?
It is bearish. It forms after a rise and shows a rally that was rejected within one session, which can warn of a top.
What is the difference between a shooting star and an inverted hammer?
They share the same shape: a small body near the low and a long upper wick. A shooting star forms after a rise, while an inverted hammer forms after a fall.
Does the colour of a shooting star matter?
A red body reads slightly stronger because price closed below the open. The wick length and the level it forms at matter much more.
Do you need confirmation after a shooting star?
We prefer it. Waiting for a break of the candle’s low costs a little price but filters out many rejections that turn into continuation.
Next steps
Single candles work best inside a wider reading of the chart, which our complete beginner’s guide to price action trading builds step by step. For a three-candle turn at a top, see our guide to the morning star and evening star patterns.
Supply and demand, and a filters and trigger process for entries, are both part of our price action trading course, and the basics section is free to start.
This article is for education only and is not financial advice. Trading leveraged products such as CFDs and spread bets carries a high risk of losing money.
