The short answer

A shooting star is a single candle with a small body near the bottom of its range and an upper wick at least twice the body's height. It forms after an advance and shows that buyers pushed to a new high and could not hold any of it into the close.

Also called: bearish pin bar

A shooting star forming after an advance, drawn from the pattern's real open, high, low and close proportions Shooting star

Drawn to the real proportions the formation rules describe. Lead-in candles are dimmed; the pattern itself is bracketed.

  • Traditional bias Bearish
  • Type Reversal
  • Built from One candle
  • Context After an advance

How to spot it

  • The real body sits in the lower third of the candle's total range.
  • The upper wick is at least twice the height of the real body.
  • The lower wick is very small or absent.
  • The body is small but real: a candle with no body at all is a gravestone doji, not a shooting star.
  • It appears after a measurable advance.
  • It usually gaps or opens near the prior close, then rejects the high.

What it actually means

Price reached higher than at any point in the move and every bit of that ground was surrendered before the close. The upper wick is a map of where buyers ran out. After an extended advance, that is the first session where demand visibly failed to defend a new high.

What confirms it

The next candle closes below the shooting star's body, ideally below its low. Volume heavier than the preceding sessions strengthens the read.

What invalidates it

A close above the shooting star's high. That turns the rejected level into accepted ground and voids the read entirely.

Where people get it wrong

The shooting star is geometrically identical to the inverted hammer; only the preceding trend tells them apart, and traders mix them up constantly. It is also weak on its own in a strong trend, where single-session rejections happen repeatedly without the trend ending. It marks the first session in which demand visibly failed to hold a new high, which is a different thing from a completed turn.

Common questions

Is the shooting star bullish or bearish?
The traditional reading is bearish. Price reached higher than at any point in the move and every bit of that ground was surrendered before the close. It carries that reading only after an advance.
What confirms a shooting star?
The next candle closes below the shooting star's body, ideally below its low. Volume heavier than the preceding sessions strengthens the read.
When does the shooting star stop working?
A close above the shooting star's high. That turns the rejected level into accepted ground and voids the read entirely. Beyond that, the shooting star is geometrically identical to the inverted hammer; only the preceding trend tells them apart, and traders mix them up constantly.

Patterns worth reading next

Formation rules follow Japanese Candlestick Charting Techniques by Steve Nison. Reviewed 2026-09-14.