Evening Star
An evening star is the bearish mirror of the morning star. A strong up candle is followed by a small-bodied candle showing indecision, then a strong down candle that cuts well into the first candle's range, tracing a handover from buyers to sellers.
- Bias
- Bearish
- Category
- Short Setups
- Scan cadence
- Every close
What has to be true for a Evening Star to trigger
- A clear up candle opening the sequence
- A small-bodied middle candle showing indecision
- A strong down candle closing well into the first candle's range
- A preceding advance
How PatternGrade grades it
A smaller middle candle and a stronger third-candle decline raise the grade.
Every scanner grades its hits A+, A or B from the pattern's own measurable structure. The grading is deterministic — the same chart always produces the same grade. It describes how closely the chart matches the pattern, not how likely anything is to happen; no hit rate or probability is attached to a grade. The reasoning is set out in the methodology.
What a Evening Star looks like in practice
Session one is a wide up candle closing near its high at $77 after a month-long advance. Session two gaps up and trades in a narrow range between $77.80 and $78.40, closing near its open, the smallest range in two weeks. Session three opens at $77.20 and closes at $73.60, well below the midpoint of the first candle's body, on volume half again the average.
How a Evening Star fails
The third candle is too weak. An evening star needs the final session to give back a meaningful part of the first candle's advance; a shallow third bar leaves the pattern as a pause and price frequently resumes higher. The other failure is context: evening stars appear regularly within ongoing uptrends, where they mark a two-day dip and nothing more.
What this pattern is telling you
Three-candle patterns are short-horizon signals. Where in the trend the pattern forms matters more than the shape itself.
PatternGrade is not a financial advisor and does not give buy or sell recommendations. Targets and stops shown on a pattern are reference levels derived from its geometry, not advice.
How to scan for Evening Star setups
PatternGrade rescans every liquid US stock (~4,500 names) for this pattern after every close and returns the hits as a graded list, with the pattern drawn on each chart, so you review setups rather than hunt for them.
Join the waitlist to be invited when sign-ups reopen and see the current Evening Star list, or browse all 75 patterns.
Evening Star FAQ
What is an evening star pattern?
A three-candle bearish reversal: an up candle, a small indecisive candle, then a strong down candle cutting into the first candle's range.
What are the three candles in an evening star?
A substantial up candle, a small-bodied candle showing indecision that often gaps higher, and a strong down candle closing well into the first candle's body. The sequence shows buying pressure, hesitation, then sellers taking control.
How far should the third candle close?
Below the midpoint of the first candle's real body, and the deeper the better. A third candle that closes only marginally lower has demonstrated little, and PatternGrade weights that depth heavily.
Does the middle candle need to gap?
Classically yes, and gaps on both sides make it an evening star doji, the strongest version. In practice most implementations, including this one, accept a small-bodied middle candle without requiring gaps.
Is an evening star reliable?
It is among the better-regarded three-candle reversals because it encodes a full sequence rather than a single session. It remains a three-day pattern, which is a short window on which to call a top, and it works far better at a tested resistance level than in open space.
Patterns a Evening Star is mistaken for
- Bearish Engulfing
- Two candles with the second covering the first's body. An evening star inserts an indecision bar between them.
- Dark Cloud Cover
- Two candles, with the second closing below the first's midpoint. Again, no middle indecision bar.
- Morning Star
- The bullish mirror: the same three-bar construction after a decline.
- Three Black Crows
- Three consecutive strong down candles. An evening star's three bars are up, indecisive, then down.
Last reviewed . Structure and grading for the Evening Star are reviewed against the scanner's own rules.