Morning Star
A morning star is a three-session bullish reversal. A strong down candle is followed by a small-bodied candle showing indecision, then a strong up candle that recovers well into the first candle's range. The sequence traces a handover from sellers to buyers.
- Bias
- Bullish
- Category
- Candlestick Reversal
- Scan cadence
- Every close
What has to be true for a Morning Star to trigger
- A clear down candle opening the sequence
- A small-bodied middle candle showing indecision
- A strong up candle closing well into the first candle's range
- A preceding decline
How PatternGrade grades it
A smaller middle candle and a stronger third-candle recovery 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 Morning Star looks like in practice
Session one is a wide down candle closing near its low at $62. Session two gaps down and trades in a tight range between $60.40 and $61.20, closing almost where it opened. That is indecision, and the smallest range of the past two weeks. Session three opens at $61.50 and closes at $64.80, well above the midpoint of the first candle's body, on volume half again the average.
How a Morning Star fails
The third candle is not strong enough. A morning star needs the final session to recover a meaningful part of the first candle's decline. A weak third bar leaves the pattern as a pause rather than a reversal, and price rolls over from there. The other failure is context: morning stars appear regularly within ongoing downtrends, where they mark a two-day bounce and nothing more.
What this pattern is telling you
Three-candle patterns are more robust than single candles but still short-horizon signals. Context, meaning where in the trend it forms, matters more than the shape.
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 Morning 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 Morning Star list, or browse all 75 patterns.
Morning Star FAQ
What is a morning star pattern?
A three-candle bullish reversal: a down candle, a small indecisive candle, then a strong up candle recovering into the first candle's range.
What are the three candles in a morning star?
A substantial down candle, a small-bodied candle showing indecision that often gaps lower, and a strong up candle closing well into the first candle's body. The sequence is meant to show selling pressure, hesitation, then buyers taking control.
How far should the third candle close?
Conventionally above the midpoint of the first candle's real body, and the further the better. A third candle that closes only marginally higher has not demonstrated much, and PatternGrade weights the depth of that recovery heavily in the grade.
Does the middle candle need to gap?
Classically yes, and a gap on both sides makes it a morning star doji, the strongest version. In practice gaps are less common on liquid US stocks, and most implementations, including this one, accept a small-bodied middle candle without requiring a gap.
Is a morning star reliable?
It is among the better-regarded three-candle reversals because it encodes a full sequence rather than a single session. It is still a three-day pattern, which is a short window on which to call a reversal, and it works far better at a tested support level than in open space.
Patterns a Morning Star is mistaken for
- Bullish Engulfing
- Two candles rather than three, and the second must fully cover the first's body. A morning star's middle session is a small indecisive bar and the recovery happens on the third.
- Piercing Line
- Two candles, with the second closing above the midpoint of the first. A morning star inserts an indecision bar between them.
- Evening Star
- The bearish mirror: the same three-bar construction after an advance instead of a decline.
- Three White Soldiers
- Three consecutive strong up candles. A morning star's three bars are down, indecisive, then up.
Last reviewed . Structure and grading for the Morning Star are reviewed against the scanner's own rules.