Morning Star Candlestick pattern is a bullish reversal candlestick setup that appears after a downtrend, signaling the start of potential upward momentum.
What Is a Morning Star Doji Candlestick Pattern?
The morning star doji is a three-candle bullish reversal that usually shows up after a clean downtrend. It’s basically the classic Morning Star, but with one strict requirement: the middle candle has to be a real doji—open and close nearly the same, with a body that’s typically less than ~5% of the average candle range. That’s what separates it from versions that use any random small-bodied candle.
What Are the 3 Candles in a Morning Star Doji?
You’re looking for three candles:
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First Candle – A long bearish candle. Sellers are still in control and the downtrend looks intact.
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Second Candle (Doji) – A doji star that sits below the first candle’s body. This is the “stall” candle—price stops trending and prints balance/indecision, often right where selling starts to run out of fuel.
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Third Candle – A strong bullish candle that closes above the midpoint of the first candle. That close is the market telling you buyers are finally pushing back with intent.
Morning Star Doji Checklist: Key Characteristics
Pattern Element | Characteristic | Significance |
|---|---|---|
First Candle | Long bearish body with a firm close | Shows the downtrend still has pressure behind it |
Second Candle | True doji (tiny body) | Momentum stalls; sellers stop getting paid for pressing |
Third Candle | Bullish close above 50% of first candle | Confirms buyers are taking control, not just a bounce |
Gap | Visible separation between candles | Makes the “selloff → pause → reversal” story cleaner |
What Makes a Morning Star Doji Pattern Strong?
The morning star doji hits harder when it forms into real support (prior swing low, demand zone, weekly level) and the third candle comes with rising volume. That’s when it stops being “cute candlesticks” and starts looking like an actual shift in order flow—useful for both swing trades and tighter intraday setups.
How to Trade the Morning Star Doji Pattern
Where to Enter a Morning Star Doji Trade
The cleanest entry is after the third bullish candle closes above the midpoint of the first candle. You’re paying a little for confirmation, but you’re also cutting down the number of “almost” setups that roll over.
Other ways traders play it:
Breakout entry: Buy on a break above the third candle’s high if you want momentum continuation.
Support confluence: If the pattern forms on a major level, some traders wait for a retest into that zone before triggering.
Indicator confirmation: RSI reclaiming 50, or MACD flipping bullish, can add timing—especially when price is choppy.
The edge usually comes from confluence. A morning star doji printed into a well-defined support shelf, with bullish momentum improving and volume expanding, is a different animal than the same shape floating in the middle of a range. Logging the setup in a trading journal helps you figure out which combinations actually pay on your market—EURUSD behaves differently than Tesla stock, and both trade differently than Bitcoin.
Where to Place a Stop Loss for Morning Star Doji
Conservative approach: Stop below the doji low. On FX pairs that might be 40–60 pips, but the real driver is ATR/volatility, not a fixed number.
Aggressive approach: Stop below the entire three-candle low. You give it more breathing room, but you’re also accepting a wider loss if the pattern fails.
The USDJPY example is a good illustration: entering around 138.50 with roughly 140 pips of room can make sense if volatility is elevated and the level matters. In quieter tape, that same stop might be overkill. Match the stop to structure and current range expansion.
How to Set Take Profit Targets for Morning Star Doji
Targets are usually the nearest resistance levels: prior swing highs, supply zones, or Fibonacci extensions if you trade that way. You can also measure the pattern height and project a measured move, but structure levels tend to matter more in live price.
Instead of one all-or-nothing exit, partial profit-taking around multiple resistance steps works well. It keeps you paid while still letting the trade run if the reversal turns into an actual trend leg.
Trailing stops come into play once price clears resistance and holds. In the USDJPY-style scenario, you might take first profits near a 2R area, then trail for a potential 4R+ push if the next level breaks clean.
How Does the Morning Star Doji Pattern Form?
Why a Morning Star Doji Signals a Bullish Reversal
The first candle is the dump—bears are in control and bids keep getting pulled. Then the doji prints because that pressure starts to fade; sellers are still active, but they’re not getting follow-through anymore. Buyers step in, sellers hesitate, and price goes sideways inside that candle.
The third candle is where the reversal earns respect. Buyers push price up and close strong, usually reclaiming a big chunk of the first candle. When this happens at a level where larger players like to defend (obvious support, prior accumulation area), it often reads like sellers capitulating while fresh demand comes in.
How to Confirm a Morning Star Doji With Volume
Volume is what keeps you out of the “pattern that looked perfect and still failed” trap. In a clean version, volume tends to cool off on the doji (less participation, less urgency), then expands on the third candle as buyers actually commit. That’s why volume confirmation matters—without it, you might just be trading noise.
Don’t front-run it. The third candle needs to close decisively, ideally above the doji’s range and above the midpoint of candle one. Waiting for that close is boring, but it filters a lot of fake reversals.
Morning Star Doji: How to Spot It and Avoid Mistakes
Common Morning Star Doji Mistakes Traders Make
A lot of traders mix up the morning star and the evening star. Same three-candle idea, opposite location. Morning star = after a decline, bearish first candle, bullish confirmation. Evening star = after a rally, bullish first candle, bearish confirmation.
The bigger mistake is trading an incomplete pattern. If the third candle doesn’t close well into the first candle’s body, you don’t have a reversal—just a pause. Also, don’t downgrade the doji requirement. A spinning top isn’t the same thing, and loosening that rule usually lowers the hit rate. Skipping volume and context checks is another fast way to stack false positives.
When Morning Star Doji Works Best: Trend and Context
These patterns work best when they’re reversing an actual trend, not when price is chopping sideways. A morning star doji after a real selloff has weight; a morning star doji inside a tight consolidation box is often just random rotation.
Support/resistance, broader sentiment, and basic momentum tools should back the signal. Patterns that print into a major support zone and then reclaim key levels tend to follow through more often. Pros typically blend candlesticks with volume, moving averages, and RSI/MACD to avoid getting chopped up.
How to Combine Morning Star Doji With Indicators and Trend Signals
The morning star doji gets a lot more tradable when it lines up with other signals that point the same way. RSI below 30 can flag oversold conditions, while MACD divergence or a bullish crossover can support the idea that downside momentum is fading. If price then reclaims a key moving average like the 50-day or 200-day, that’s often when swing traders start paying attention.
It also travels well across markets—stocks, forex, crypto—but timeframe alignment matters. A morning star doji on a 15-minute chart works better when the 4H or daily is also basing, otherwise you’re fighting the bigger flow. Add volume expansion on the third candle and you’ve got a layered signal instead of a single-candle story.
To use it properly, you still need backtesting and tight risk management. No candlestick pattern guarantees profit. The ones that perform best are usually the clean reversals at downtrend lows, especially when the setup is obvious on the chart and your stop is placed at the real invalidation point—not where it “feels” comfortable.
How Do You Turn Morning Star Doji Setups Into Repeatable Results?
Because the morning star doji depends so much on context (trend strength, support quality, volume behavior, and confirmation from indicators), the most practical way to improve is to track how your versions perform over time. Reviewing each trade—entry trigger, stop placement logic, target selection, and whether the third candle truly confirmed the reversal—helps separate clean reversals from lookalike pauses that fail. A consistent log also makes it easier to spot which confluence factors (support levels, rising volume, RSI/MACD alignment, timeframe agreement) actually move your win rate and average R.
If you want a structured way to monitor PnL, screenshots, and pattern-specific metrics, using a dedicated trading journal and analytics dashboard such as Rizetrade trading journal analytics for tracking morning star doji performance can make that review process more objective. Over a meaningful sample size, those notes turn a single candlestick idea into a testable, refinable decision-making framework.