ShootingStar
A candle with a long upper wick and its body near the low, a shape read as rejected highs.
Each one-minute bar is tested on its own shape. The body is the gap between open and close. The upper wick, from the higher of open and close up to the high, must be at least shadow_mult times that body, and the lower wick, from the low up to the lower of open and close, must be at most body_ratio times the body. The indicator keeps no history and checks no trend or candle color, so a bar either matches this shape or it does not.
How to read it
- Markers sit on the matching candles. On the September 2026 SPY sample about 22% of one-minute bars matched, in runs of about two bars.
- Read a run of markers as one event: its first marker is the bar where the shape first appeared.
- A marker means only that this bar's shape matches. Check the trend before it and what price does over the next few bars, which the marker does not show.
What it outputs
- Shooting star
- Drawn on bars whose upper wick is at least 2 times the body and whose lower wick is at most 0.3 times the body (the defaults).
When it fires
On a bar whose upper wick reaches at least shadow_mult times its body while its lower wick stays within body_ratio times the body. It means this bar pushed above its open and close, then closed back near its low. It does not confirm a reversal.
Settings
- Body Ratio
- Caps the lower wick at this multiple of the body. Raising it to 0.5 accepts a longer bottom tail, so more markers. Lowering it to 0.1 needs the body almost on the low, so fewer markers.
- Shadow Multiplier
- Minimum upper wick as a multiple of the body. Raising it to 3 keeps only candles with long tops, so fewer markers. Lowering it to 1.5 accepts shorter tops, so more markers on ordinary bars.
Pitfalls
- Default settings fire on about 22% of one-minute SPY bars, about 100 separate runs a day. That is common, not rare, so unfiltered markers mostly show noise.
- Only the candle's shape is tested: no prior rally and no bearish body. Markers appear in falling markets and flat ones too, not only after an uptrend.
- The catalog calls body_ratio a body-to-height limit, but the code caps the lower wick at body_ratio times the body. A bar with open, close and low equal fires even with no upper wick.