What Is Shooting Star?
A Shooting Star is a single-candle bearish reversal pattern: a small body near the day's low with a long upper wick (at least twice the body's length) and little to no lower wick. The pattern shows that buyers pushed price up during the session but sellers pushed it all the way back down.
To qualify as a Shooting Star, the candle should form after an uptrend. The same shape mid-range is just an indecision candle. Volume confirmation matters — a Shooting Star on heavy volume carries more weight than one on average volume.
Common entry: short on the next candle's break of the Shooting Star's low. Stop-loss above the Shooting Star's high (the upper wick). The pattern's predictive value is moderate alone but high when combined with overbought RSI, a key resistance level, or a confirming follow-through bearish candle.
Related terms
- Hammer Candlestick — A bullish reversal candle with a small body and long lower wick, appearing at the bottom of declines.
- Candlestick Chart — Price chart format where each candle shows open, high, low, and close for a period.
- Doji Candlestick — A candlestick where open and close are nearly equal — indicates indecision in the market.
- Support and Resistance — Price levels where buying or selling pressure historically halts price movement.