The candles of the pattern are ringed. An invented chart, drawn to show the shape. Not market data.
Also searched asshooting star candle · bearish pin bar · inverted hammer
How to recognise a shooting star
- A small body in the lower third of the candle.
- An upper wick at least twice the length of the body.
- Little or no lower wick.
- It follows a rise.
What it is taken to mean
It is read as higher prices being rejected. Traders treat it as a warning that the rise may be tiring, and look for a lower close on the next candle.
What traders check next
- Whether the high sits at a level that has capped the price before.
- The next close: below the body supports the reading, above the high cancels it.
- Whether the whole move up was already stretched or had only just begun.
Where people go wrong
- Selling into a strong trend on one candle.
- Confusing it with an inverted hammer, which has the same shape but follows a fall.
- Forgetting that a long wick on a thin, quiet market means less than one on a busy one.
Questions people ask
- Shooting star or inverted hammer?
- Same shape, different place. After a rise it is called a shooting star; after a fall, an inverted hammer.
- Does a shooting star mean the price will fall?
- No. It describes what buyers and sellers did during those candles. Studies of candlestick patterns find that, taken alone, they predict the next move only a little better than chance, if at all. It is one observation to weigh with others.
The words on this page
An explanation for study. It is not advice, a recommendation or a forecast, and a pattern or a situation described here says nothing certain about what a price will do next.