Fractiz
Pattern
Shooting Star
A single-bar bearish reversal with a small body near the low and a long upper wick after an uptrend, read as sellers rejecting the session highs.
The Pattern
A Shooting Star is a single bar with three shape constraints:
- The body sits in the lower third of the bar’s range.
- The upper wick is at least twice the body’s height.
- The lower wick is short or absent.
The pattern requires a prevailing uptrend before the bar fires. The same shape after a downtrend is an Inverted Hammer with the opposite bias.
The Story Behind It
The session opened weak, buyers rallied price well above the open, and sellers absorbed the move and pushed price back down to close near the open. The long upper wick records that failed attempt. In the classical Japanese reading the bar resembles a shooting star fading after a rise, and the closing weakness near the open is the visible footprint of distribution at the highs.
The pattern’s reliability depends heavily on context. A shooting star at a fresh all-time high carries different weight than one printed inside an extended rally that has shown multiple failed pushes. Many practitioners require additional confirmation from the next session before treating it as actionable.
When It Tends To Work
- After a clear uptrend, ideally one that has reached a previously meaningful resistance level.
- When the upper wick is long relative to recent bars and reaches into a price area that was previously rejected.
- When the close prints near the bar’s low rather than just in the lower third.
When It Tends To Fail
- In strong, persistent uptrends. The same shape can print repeatedly during a steady rally and most will fail.
- On thinly-traded or low-volume bars where the long upper wick reflects one large order, not aggregated selling.
- In equity index futures with a structural long bias. Shorting the pattern faces the same drift headwind as every other bearish setup on these instruments.
How This Strategy Trades It
Enter short at the close of the shooting star bar. Hold for hold_bars sessions (default 5), then flatten unconditionally.
Related Patterns
- Inverted Hammer: same shape, bullish context. The shape alone is not the signal, the prior trend is.
- Hanging Man: same trend context, opposite wick direction. The bearish version of the hammer shape.
- Bearish Engulfing: a stronger two-bar version of the same reversal idea.
Try It Yourself
The default preset uses 1-contract sizing on NQ daily bars. The form lets you change the contract, timeframe, hold length, and contract count.
Sample backtests for this pattern
Presets for this pattern (1)
Pre-filled parameter bundles using this pattern. Each opens the New Backtest form with the parameters locked in; you can still adjust contract, dates, and capital.