A shooting star is the bearish mirror of the hammer. The stock gaps up or pushes higher during the day, can’t hold it, and closes near where it opened. What’s left is a small body at the bottom of the candle with a long wick sticking up, the “tail” of the star.
The usual reading: buyers tried to take it higher and got rejected, so the rally is running out of steam. Our scanner has recorded 5,507 shooting stars across 559 US stocks and ETFs since October 2023. Here’s what followed.
What it looks like
- A small real body at the bottom of the day’s range.
- A long upper shadow, at least twice the size of the body.
- Little or no lower shadow.
- An upward gap. TA-Lib, which the scanner uses, requires the body to open above the previous day’s body, so it only flags stars that came after some strength.
If the same shape appears after a decline, it’s called an inverted hammer and read as bullish instead.
What happened next
For a bearish pattern, the number you want to see is a lower chance of the stock rising.
| After a shooting star | Cases | Higher 1 day later | Higher 5 days later | Higher 20 days later |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Shooting star | 5,507 | 51.0% | 53.9% | 55.2% |
| Any day | 413,576 | 51.9% | 53.8% | 55.6% |
The next day was slightly weaker than usual, down 49% of the time against 48% on a random day. After that the effect is gone. Five days out, the stock was higher 53.9% of the time, a hair above a random day.
At the top of a rally
The shooting star is meant to be a topping signal, so the fair test is after a run-up.
| Before the shooting star | Cases | Higher 5 days later | Any day in the same spot |
|---|---|---|---|
| Rose more than 5% in 10 days | 1,376 | 53.5% | 53.7% |
| Moved less than 5% | 3,171 | 53.4% | 53.1% |
| Fell more than 5% | 862 | 55.3% | 54.0% |
After a rally, it was followed by a decline 46.5% of the time, compared with 46.3% for any day after a rally. That’s no edge at all.
And with a confirming down day?
Waiting for the next day to close lower didn’t help either: 53.4% of those stocks were higher five days later, against 54.0% for any down day.
So what is it good for?
A shooting star tells you that a push higher was rejected that day, and sometimes that’s worth knowing. If you own the stock and it prints one right into a level where it has failed before, it’s a reasonable moment to take some profit or sell a covered call above the high of the star.
But as a stand-alone short signal, across thousands of examples, it hasn’t shown any edge. If you want a bearish trade, use a defined-risk one like a bear put spread and size it as if the pattern means nothing.
Recent shooting stars
The scanner flagged 111 shooting stars in October 2026, including TTWO on October 22 and PNC and BNTX on October 21. See today’s on the candlestick scanner, and every pattern compared in Do Candlestick Patterns Work?
Data: daily prices for 559 US stocks and ETFs, October 2023 to October 2026, patterns detected by TA-Lib. Educational only, not financial advice.