Bullish Tri Star

A bullish tri star is a rare three-candle bottom built entirely from indecision. After a fall, three small dojis print in a row. Each candle opens and closes at almost the same price, so the body is tiny and neither side is winning. The middle doji gaps below the first, then the third gaps back up above the middle. That little dip and recovery in the noise is the hint that selling has stalled and a turn may be near.

The tri-star is one of the rarer reversal shapes Steve Nison catalogues in Japanese Candlestick Charting Techniques (1991), three dojis in a row.

How to spot it

• The market is falling into the pattern.
• All three candles are dojis: small bodies where the open and close sit very close together.
• The middle doji gaps down below the first one.
• The third doji gaps back up above the middle one.
• The shape is a sag and a bounce drawn in three quiet candles, not big moves.

The psychology

The market has been falling, but by the time the first doji prints the selling has gone quiet. A doji means the open and close land in almost the same place, so the session ends in a standoff with neither side able to move price. After a decline, that loss of momentum is itself a message: the sellers who were driving the trend are no longer pushing hard.

The middle doji gaps a little lower, as if one more probe to the downside is coming, but again the candle closes flat and the probe fails. Then the third doji gaps back up above it. Buyers and sellers are still evenly matched, yet the center of gravity has nudged higher, and the relentless one-way pressure that defined the fall is gone. Control has not swung hard to the buyers so much as slipped out of the sellers’ hands while the market caught its breath.

Whether that quiet stall turns into a real bottom is the matter the data below weighs.

Does it actually work?

A pattern is a setup, not a trade, so the honest question is not “did it win” but “how much room did it tend to offer before it was proven wrong.” The tabs below answer that across five futures markets (Nasdaq, S&P 500, gold, crude oil, natural gas) and seven timeframes from one minute to one day.

For each occurrence we measure the room the move offered in units of the pattern’s own risk, then set it against what a random entry on the same market would have done. When the pattern offers more room more often than chance, that shows up as a real edge. When it does not, the page says so plainly.

Read it with the sample size in view. On the faster timeframes a pattern can fire thousands of times, enough to trust. On the daily chart it is far rarer, so treat those numbers as a hint rather than a verdict. Thin samples are flagged for you on the page.

How we measured it

• Entry is the close of the final candle of the pattern.
• One unit of risk, 1R, is the distance from that close down to the pattern’s invalidation point: the lowest low of the three candles that form it. If price trades through there, the setup is wrong.
• We then follow the next 20 bars and record how far price ran in your favor, in multiples of that risk, before the stop was hit.
• Every figure is set against a random entry on the same market and timeframe, so the market’s own drift is accounted for.
• No profit target and no position sizing. Where you take profit is a strategy choice; this measures only the room the pattern tends to give.

What this page does not cover

• Volume on the pattern’s candles.
• Whether the pattern forms at a meaningful support level.
• Pairing it with a trend filter or a confirming signal.
• A profit target or position sizing. We use the pattern’s own invalidation point as the stop to define risk, but where you take profit, and how much you put on, are strategy decisions this page leaves to you.