What is the evening star pattern?
The evening star is a bearish candlestick pattern. Three candles: a long green, a small body stalling above it, then a red candle pushing back down into the first.
How does the evening star form?
Three bars: a long green one, a small-bodied bar stalling above it, then a red bar closing well back into the first bar's range.
How do you confirm a evening star?
The middle bar should have a visibly small body, whether it closes up or down. A large middle bar makes this three ordinary bars.
When does the evening star fail?
In a strong uptrend the small middle bar is often just consolidation, and the red bar that follows gets bought before it can close low enough to complete the shape.
No chart pattern works every time. The examples on this page were chosen because they show the pattern clearly, and in real markets patterns fail often.
Practice on real charts
3 real examples of the evening star, cut off where the pattern completed. Make your call, then see what happened.
The shaded area is a evening star. Where did price go next?
