Morning Star / Evening Star

Three-bar reversal pattern. A long candle, then a small "star" (small-body bar of either colour), then a long candle in the opposite direction whose close passes the first bar's midpoint. Morning Star is bullish (long red → star → long green); Evening Star is the bearish mirror. Among the strongest classical candlestick reversal patterns.

Quick reference

Item	Value
Family	Candlestick Patterns
Input type	Candle
Output type	f64 — +1.0 Morning, -1.0 Evening, 0.0 otherwise
Output range	{-1.0, 0.0, +1.0}
Default parameters	none — MorningEveningStar::new()
Warmup period	3
Interpretation	Strong three-bar reversal signal

Formula

Morning Star (+1.0):

Bar 1: long red candle
Bar 2: small-body candle ("star")  — colour does not matter
Bar 3: long green candle, close > (bar1.open + bar1.close) / 2

"long" enforced by: outer_body >= 2 · star_body

Evening Star (-1.0): mirror — long green, small star, long red closing below Bar 1's midpoint. See crates/wickra-core/src/indicators/morning_evening_star.rs.

Parameters

None.

Signed ±1 encoding

This pattern already emits the uniform candlestick sign convention shared across the family — +1.0 bullish, −1.0 bearish, 0.0 no pattern — so it drops straight into a machine-learning feature matrix where the bullish and bearish variants of the pattern occupy a single dimension.

Inputs / Outputs

Indicator<Input = Candle, Output = f64>. Python: (n,) array with NaN for the first 2 bars. Node: same.

Warmup

warmup_period() == 3. First two bars return 0.0; the pattern emits on bar 3 of the three-bar sequence.

Edge cases

• Star colour is arbitrary. The middle "star" bar can be red, green, or doji — the pattern only requires it to be smaller than the outer bars (at least 2:1 ratio).
• Strict midpoint test. Bar 3 must close past Bar 1's midpoint for Morning; below for Evening. The midpoint requirement is what separates a true Star pattern from a noisy 3-bar pause.
• Reset. Clears the two-bar history.

Examples

Rust

use wickra::{Candle, Indicator, MorningEveningStar};

fn main() -> Result<(), Box<dyn std::error::Error>> {
    // Morning Star
    let b1 = Candle::new(12.0, 12.2, 9.5, 10.0, 1.0, 0)?;  // long red
    let b2 = Candle::new(9.9, 10.1, 9.7, 9.95, 1.0, 1)?;    // doji-ish star
    let b3 = Candle::new(10.0, 12.0, 9.9, 11.5, 1.0, 2)?;   // long green closes above midpoint (11.0)
    let mut s = MorningEveningStar::new();
    s.update(b1); s.update(b2);
    println!("{:?}", s.update(b3));  // +1.0
    Ok(())
}

Python

import numpy as np
import wickra as ta

o = np.array([12.0, 9.9, 10.0])
h = np.array([12.2, 10.1, 12.0])
l = np.array([ 9.5, 9.7, 9.9])
c = np.array([10.0, 9.95, 11.5])

s = ta.MorningEveningStar()
print(s.batch(o, h, l, c))  # [0, 0, 1.0]

Node

const wickra = require('wickra');
const s = new wickra.MorningEveningStar();
console.log(s.batch([12, 9.9, 10], [12.2, 10.1, 12], [9.5, 9.7, 9.9], [10, 9.95, 11.5]));

Streaming

use wickra::{Candle, Indicator, MorningEveningStar};

let mut s = MorningEveningStar::new();
let candle_stream: Vec<wickra::Candle> = Vec::new(); // your live OHLCV candle feed
for bar in candle_stream {
    if s.update(bar) == Some(1.0) { /* Morning Star */ }
    if s.update(bar) == Some(-1.0) { /* Evening Star */ }
}

Interpretation

• Strong reversal. Among the highest-conviction classical candlestick patterns. The star bar in the middle marks capitulation; the third bar confirms the new direction.
• Best at extremes. Morning Star at a key support level is particularly powerful; the same pattern in the middle of a range is just noise.
• Gap variant. Classical Morning Star has gaps between Bars 1-2 and 2-3. Modern markets gap less, so Wickra implements the relaxed version that does not require gaps.

Common pitfalls

• Confused with Doji-only middle bar. The middle bar must be small but not strictly a Doji. Many Stars have a small green or red middle bar.
• Midpoint test. Bar 3 must close past Bar 1's midpoint, not past Bar 1's high (Morning) or low (Evening). A weaker close inside Bar 1's range still qualifies.

References

• Steve Nison, Japanese Candlestick Charting Techniques (1991) — Morning / Evening Star definitions.

See also

• Doji — common shape of the middle "star" bar.
• Engulfing — two-bar reversal sibling.
• ThreeInside / ThreeOutside — other three-bar confirmations.
• Indicators-Overview — full taxonomy.