If you’ve ever wondered how to spot a potential market reversal before it happens, the Morning Star candlestick pattern might enhance your trading strategy. This pattern is known for its reliability in signaling bullish reversals, offering traders a way to anticipate upward momentum and tweak their trading plans effectively.

It’s like seeing the first rays of dawn after a long night—an early sign that brighter times are ahead for a stock or crypto asset. Let’s explore what the Morning Star is and how it can enhance your trading strategy to determine shift in market momentum.

Explanation of Morning Star Candlestick Pattern

The Morning Star candlestick pattern is a three-candle formation. It is a technical indicator that signals a potential reversal from a downtrend to an uptrend. It typically appears after a downward price move affecting your technical analysis. It consists of:

  1. A large (red) bearish candle indicates strong selling pressure and a shift in market sentiment. It affects the overall trade setup and paves the way for potential trend reversal.
  2. A small-bodied candle (can be a bullish or bearish candle) is represented as the middle candle. It shows indecision in the market.
  3. A strong (green) bullish candle confirms the bullish reversal pattern by closing well above the midpoint of the first candle. It also indicated a potential entry of bullish control
    This technical indicator helps traders to make informed decisions. Traders use the morning star pattern to identify potential downward trends from bearish to bullish sentiment, often confirming it with higher trading volume or additional technical indicators.

Illustration of Morning Star Candlestick Pattern

The Morning Star pattern is illustrated below.

Key Features of the Morning Star Pattern

  • Appears at the bottom of a downward reversal.
  • Consists of three candles: a long bearish, a small-bodied, and a long bullish candle.
  • Indicates a potential bullish reversal signal.
  • Confirmation is stronger with a higher volume on the third or the bullish candle.

Trading Psychology of Morning Star

The Morning Star pattern reflects a change in market sentiment. Initially, sellers dominate, pushing prices lower, indicating a bearish influence.

The small-bodied middle candle represents stock market indecision, often occurring due to reduced selling pressure, price drop, or early buying interest. It makes the bearish candle grow taller. The third candle shows buyers gaining confidence, taking control, and driving prices higher. This transition hints at a reversal from bearish trends to bullish trends, giving traders a signal to consider long positions and make informed decisions.

Conventional Approach for Using Morning Star

Market Conditions: The Morning Star typically performs well in trending financial markets, particularly at the end of a downtrend. In high-volatility environments, the pattern’s reliability may increase due to stronger reactions, price decline, or sustained decline.

It will help you to make rational decisions. However, in low volatility, it may provide weaker signals. The theory suggests that this pattern is more effective when followed by confirmation from other indicators like moving averages or RSI in the financial markets.

Risk Management Suggestions for Morning Star Candlestick Pattern

Systematic traders might consider placing stop-losses below the low of the second or third candle. However, the fundamental analysis recommends backtesting these placements and bullish signals before using them in live trading to ensure a bearish reversal away from the small-bodied candle. Figure out how it aligns with your strategy’s risk tolerance and avoid hiking transaction costs.

Pattern Failure Conditions for Morning Star

The Morning Star may present a false signal. The reasons for this failure are not limited to price movements, defying the trading rules in strong downtrends or if the third candle’s bullish movement lacks volume indicators.

Regarding the additional indicators, if the price chart opens significantly lower after the pattern forms, it can negate the bullish signal. It must not be confused with a false signal but rather a momentum indicator for market shifts for bullish momentum.

Hence, Morning Star is not just an ideology but a valuable tool for new and seasoned traders to capitalize on the price chart in the ecosystem of volatile markets.

Systematic Trading Application for Morning Star Candlestick Pattern

In systematic trading rules, a Morning Star could trigger a trend reversal during a period of time when the third candle closes above the midpoint of the first candle. Traders should backtest this investment strategy across various markets to determine its effectiveness and compare the trading strategies, as not all candlestick patterns are universally reliable.

Amibroker Code for Morning Star Candlestick Pattern

bearishCandle = Close < Open;

bullishCandle = Close > Open;

smallBody = abs(Close – Open) < (High – Low) * 0.3;

MorningStar = Ref(bearishCandle, -2) AND Ref(smallBody,-1) AND bullishCandle AND (Close > Ref(Close, -2) + (Ref(Open, -2) – Ref(Close, -2)) / 2);

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Adrian Reid Founder and CEO
Adrian is a full-time private trader based in Australia and also the Founder and Trading Coach at Enlightened Stock Trading, which focuses on educating and supporting traders on their journey to profitable systems trading. Following his successful adoption of systematic trading which generated him hundreds of thousands of dollars a year using just 30 minutes a day to manage his system trading workflow, Adrian made the easy decision to leave his professional work in the corporate world in 2012. Adrian trades long/short across US, Australian and international stock markets and the cryptocurrency markets. His trading systems are now fully automated and have consistently outperformed international share markets with dramatically reduced risk over the past 20+ years. Adrian focuses on building portfolios of profitable, stable and robust long term trading systems to beat market returns with high risk adjusted returns. Adrian teaches traders from all over the world how to get profitable, confident and consistent by trading systematically and backtesting their own trading systems. He helps profitable traders grow and smooth returns by implementing a portfolio of trading systems to make money from different markets and market conditions.