📘 What are the Doji, Hammer and Shooting Star?
$BTC printed two of these three candles in the last week. A shooting star marked the Oct 2 top, and a doji showed up right after this week's flush to $80,394.
A candlestick shows four prices: open, high, low and close. The thick part is the body (open to close). The thin lines are the wicks (how far price went before being pushed back). These three candles are all about the wicks and the body size. They show where buyers or sellers lost control.
📊 Live chart in the cover and in the image post below.
🔍 How to spot them
• Doji: open and close are almost the same, so the body is tiny (under ~10% of the candle's range). It means buyers and sellers ended in a draw
• Hammer: small body near the top of the candle, lower wick at least 2x the body, little or no upper wick. It must appear AFTER a drop. Sellers pushed price down, buyers pushed it all the way back
• Shooting star: the upside-down hammer. Small body near the bottom, upper wick at least 2x the body. It must appear AFTER a rise. Buyers pushed up, sellers slammed it back
• Context matters: a hammer shape at the top of a rally is not a hammer (it is called a hanging man)
📈 How traders use them
• Entry: never on the signal candle alone. Wait for the next candle to confirm (a green close above the hammer, a red close below the shooting star)
• Stop-loss: just beyond the wick. Below the hammer's low, above the shooting star's high
• Target: the nearest support or resistance level, or a 2:1 reward-to-risk
• Doji: treat it as a pause. The candle after it shows who won
🧪 Live example: $BTC, Oct 2 – Oct 9, 2026
Shooting star (daily, Oct 2):
• Open $84,880, high $87,220, close $84,518
• Upper wick about $2,340, body only about $360. The wick is 6.5x the body
• It came at the top of a rally, right at the ~$87.2K ceiling
• BTC tried again on Oct 5 ($86,999) but never closed above. By Oct 8 it hit $80,394, about 7.8% under the star's high
Doji (4H, Oct 8, 20:00 UTC):
• Open $81,776, close $81,754, a body of about $21 on a $330 range
• It came right after the flush to $80,394
• The next 4H candle closed green at $82,378. That is a first sign sellers paused, not a confirmed reversal
The hammer that wasn't (4H, Oct 8, 16:00 UTC):
• Low $80,394, then a close at $81,776
• Lower wick about $644, but the body was bigger (about $738)
• Wick under 2x the body = not a valid hammer. Many traders called it one anyway
Where BTC is now:
• Price about $82,400
• 4H RSI(14) 38.4, 4H 20 EMA ~$83,390 and 50 EMA ~$84,060, both above price
• Daily 20 EMA ~$83,250 above, daily 50 EMA ~$79,770 below
• A 4H close back above ~$83.4K would add weight to the doji. Losing $80,394 would cancel it
⚠️ Common mistakes
• Trading the candle shape without looking at the trend before it
• Entering before the candle closes. A hammer can turn into a big red candle in the last minutes
• Calling any long wick a hammer. Check the 2x wick-to-body rule
• Ignoring higher timeframes. A 15m hammer means little inside a daily downtrend
✅ Quick checklist
• Is there a clear trend before the candle?
• Is the wick at least 2x the body (hammer / star)?
• Is it at a key support or resistance level?
• Did the NEXT candle confirm the move?
• Is the stop beyond the wick, sized to 1-2% risk?
💬 Which candle do you trust most: the hammer, the doji or the shooting star? 👇
Not financial advice. DYOR.