Tristar Pattern (CDLTRISTAR)

Summary

A three-candle pattern of three consecutive doji where the middle doji is a star (its body gaps away from the first). Bullish or bearish reversal signal.

Notes

This reversal pattern does not verify the prior trend it classically assumes.
Bulkowski's testing found both Tristar variants reverse only marginally better than chance — bullish 60% of the time (rank 28/103 overall, but rare: frequency rank 79/103) and bearish just 52% of the time (rank 76/103) — despite the "exhaustion signal" framing, one of the weaker reversal signals in his candlestick set. (thepatternsite.com)

Inputs

inOpen — Open price of each bar
inHigh — High price of each bar
inLow — Low price of each bar
inClose — Close price of each bar

Outputs

outInteger — +100 (bullish, star gapped down), -100 (bearish, star gapped up), or 0 when no pattern. Both signs are emitted

Output Values

Value	Meaning
-100	Bearish Tristar: the middle doji ("star") sits isolated above its neighbors — an exhaustion signal warning an uptrend may be topping out
0	No pattern (or a doji trio without a qualifying star gap)
100	Bullish Tristar: the middle doji ("star") sits isolated below its neighbors — an exhaustion signal warning a downtrend may be bottoming out

Properties

Numerical Stability: Start-Independent


☐ Overlap Input
✅ Independent Y-Axis i
✅ Candlestick i
☐ Can Output NaN or ±Inf
☐ Identity at Period 1

Implementation

TA-Lib Definition: cdltristar.c · cdltristar.yaml

Native	File
C	`ta_CDLTRISTAR.c`
Rust	`cdltristar.rs`
Java	`Core_CDLTRISTAR.java`

TA-Lib is also available for Python, R and more using a wrapper.

Aliases

Tristar Pattern, Tri-Star