Shooting star candlestick

What makes it a shooting star

• Context first: it only counts after a rally.
• Shape: an upper shadow at least twice the height of the body.
• Bottom: close to no lower shadow.
• Colour: a red body reads a little more bearish.

Waiting for follow-through

A shooting star alone is a warning. Traders usually wait for the next candle to close below the star's body. The signal is stronger at a resistance level and when the wick comes on heavy volume.

Volume helps grade it: a shooting star whose upper shadow formed on the busiest hour of the day says more than one formed in a quiet overnight session. A practical filter many chartists use: ignore any star whose high did not reach a level already marked on the chart, since rejection only means something where sellers were expected.

Same shape, different name

The same shape after a decline is an inverted hammer, read as potentially bullish. The shooting star's mirror image — a long lower wick after a decline — is the hammer.

On BRVX

Timeframe decides weight on BRVX's chart: a shooting star on an hourly candle speaks to the next few hours, one on a weekly candle to the next weeks. A short taken after confirmation commonly puts the stop-loss above the tip of the upper shadow.