The indices ended up, but it was a very narrow session and they failed to make any headway after yesterday's late hit.  The patterns appear to be continuation patterns and we're probably headed lower .

The day started out with a lot of narrow back-and-forth action.  They tried a rally until about 11:30 and then the market rolled over and made slightly higher lows, meandered for about 90 minutes, and tried a mid-afternoon rally that nominally took out the highs on the Dow and S&P but failed to get confirmation from the Nasdaq.  At that point they rolled back over and retested the lows, but failed to break them down and then bounced into the close to close positive on the day.

The Dow was up 15 1/3, and it had only a 37-point range the entire day. The S&P was up 2 3/4 and traded in a narrow 4-point range all day, but they did close not far from the session highs.  The NDX traded in a 7-point range all day, closing up 4.

Technicals were positive by 3 to 2 on advance-declines on New York and 16 to 13 on Nasdaq.  Up/down volume was 7 to 4 on New York with a total of less than 1.2 billion traded.  Nasdaq traded less than 1.3 billion, with about a 7 to 5 positive ratio on up/down volume.

TheTechTrader.com board was mixed but mostly positive.  Some of our recent favorite trading stocks did well today.  Genesis Microcap (GNSS), a recent Chart of the Week, was up 1.75 today.  Amylin Pharmaceuticals (AMLN) soared over 31, closing at 30.34, up 1.48 on more than 15 million shares traded. 

One of our favorite picks this year, Energy Conversion Devices (ENER), continued higher and touched $30 today for the first time in some four years, up 1.14 to 29.93 at the close.

Other stocks of note:  Cutera (CUTR) was up 71 cents, Catuity (CTTY) up 70 cents, ID Biomedical (IDBE) up 44 cents, Kendle International (KNDL) up 81 cents, and ViroPharma (VPHM) up 94 cents.

So most of the junior biotech stocks we follow had a pretty strong session today.

On the downside, there were just fractional losses across the board, and nothing of note.

So, again, it was a narrow day on low volume, and the patterns that appear right now on the hourly charts appear to be bear-flag type continuation patterns, indicating we should be headed lower.

Overhead resistance right now is in the 1570-75 zone and then 1580-85 on the Nasdaq 100.  S&P resistance is at about 1215 and then 1219-20 zone.

Good trading!

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.