Shooting star candlestick
A shooting star is a candle with a long upper wick and a small body at the bottom of the range. Buyers pushed price well above the open and lost all of it by the close.
A small body sits at the base of the bar with a long shadow rising above it. During the session buyers had price well above the open and could not hold an inch of it, and by the close the advance had been sold back to where the day began. Demand showed itself, supply answered, supply won. It is the hammer's mirror told from the sellers' side.
The failure carries weight only where there was an advance to fail. A long upper wick in a falling chart restates the downtrend. The same wick printed at the top of a run is buyers reaching and being refused in public, which is the setting the shooting-star-top scan supplies by pairing the shape with RSI(14) above 60.
Without that context the pattern fails often, and even the filtered version is one session's evidence against a trend that may pause and resume. A close above the star's high retires it. The scan page replays the last 250 sessions, close to close, with no costs or slippage and the universe measured as it stands today, which is a better guide to the shape than its reputation.
In Sift
Written as pattern is shooting_star. A working scan — stocks printing a shooting star after a run:
where pattern is shooting_star and rsi(14) > 601
of the 500 most-traded NSE stocks match today, as of 25 Sept 2026
Scans that use it
Prebuilt scans in the library whose query reads this pattern — each with a hit-rate replay over the last 250 sessions.
Common questions
Is a shooting star always bearish?
No. Strong uptrends absorb rejected advances routinely, and price often pauses for a session or two and continues. The bar earns attention when the chart is already stretched, which is why the scan pairs it with RSI above 60, and even there it is a warning to watch.
What is the difference between a shooting star and an inverted hammer?
Same geometry, different location: a small body low in the range with a long upper wick, called a shooting star after an advance and an inverted hammer after a decline. The scanner detects the shape, and a momentum filter such as RSI tells you which chart it printed on.