The markets ended to the plus side, but it was a difficult start to the session. They did have a downside follow-through to yesterday's decline. But the retest of the morning lows was successful, and that triggered a sharp mid-day rally. The declining topsline resistance turned them back. They retraced a little more than 50% of their mid-day rally, and held the retracement level and then came back at the close near the high end of the range for the day.

The Dow was up 27, the S&P 00 up 1.20, and the Nadsaq 100 up 16 3/4. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index (SOXX) was up 2 3/4.

The technicals did not make it back to the plus side for the most part, but were just nominally lower. Advance-declines were negative by 17 to 15 on New York, and lower by only 14 issues on Nasdaq. Up/down volume was 9 to 7 negative with about 1 2/3 billion traded on New York, and 15 to 8 positive with about 2 1/3 billion traded on Nasdaq.

TheTechTrader.com board was mixed. There were some point-plus gainers. Some junior solar energy stocks stood out, with Ascent Solar (ASTI) running hard in the afternoon, up 2.01 to 20.06. Canadian Solar (CSIQ) also was strong today, closing at 12.64, up 1.06. Evergreen Solar (ESLR) also had a strong session, closing at 12.31, up 1.22.

Other stocks of note, Global Solutions (GSOL) snapped back 1.92 from the recent pullback. But most other gainers on my board were up by only small fractions.

On the downside, Cree Inc. (CREE) lost 1.24 and DryShips (DRYS) 1.76, but the loser of the day was VMware (VMW) down 5.13.

Stepping back and reviewing the hourly chart patterns, they came down and tested the intermediate rising trendline on the Nasdaq 100 and held in the morning and retested last week's lows on the S&P 500 and held there as well. That was one of the reasons for the snapback we had late in the day.

But the indices still have overhead resistance to contend with and are far from out of the woods. They did do well today by testing several times and holding support without breaking to lower levels.

Harry Boxer is a technical consultant to many Wall Street hedge funds and large institutional traders, and author of TheTechTrader.com, a real-time diary of his day, swing and intermediate-term trades. For more of Harry Boxer, sign up for a free 15-day trial to his Real-Time Technical Trading Diary, or sign up for a free 30-day trial to his Top Charts of the Week service.