The markets had a roller coaster session on Wednesday and ended mixed on the day. They started out lower, immediately turned around and rallied sharply, particularly on the Nasdaq 100, which took out yesterday's highs. The S&P 500 fell far short at that point, failed to confirm and they backed off. About 45 minutes later the indices snapped back and made nominal new highs, but the S&P 500 could not break through its declining tops line of the last several days, and then they rolled over in the afternoon in a fairly sharp decline, particularly on the S&P 500, that actually took out the morning lows. The Nasdaq 100 was far from confirming the SPX new session lows and they bounced again in the last hour to get the indices back in a mixed posture.

Net on the day, the Dow was down 12.37, the S&P 500 down 1/2 a point, and the Nasdaq 100 up 24.66. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index (SOXX) was up 5.35.

The technicals showed the differentials today with advance-declines 17 to 14 negative on New York ,but 16 to 12 positive on Nasdaq. Up/down volume was 7 to 5 negative on New York , 3 to 1 positive on Nasdaq. Total volume on New York was under 1.3 billion and Nasdaq was about 2.1 billion.

TheTechTrader.com board was, as a result, very mixed, and mostly fractionally mixed, but there were several point-plus gainers and losers. The strength today was in the shippers, with DryShips (DRYS) up 2.76, although TBS International (TBSI) was up only 30 cents and Excel Maritime (EXM) up only 62 cents.

Solar energy stocks had a difficult session. Canadian Solar (CSIQ) dropped 1.42, JA Solar (JASO) 65 cents, Solarfun (SOLF) 51 cents, and Energy Conversion Devices (ENER) lost a small fraction, 27 cents.

Junior biotech Sequenom (SQNM) on positive test results surged 1.67 and closed at 9.33, about 42 cents off its high, but still up a solid 21 percent on 9 1/4 million.

On the downside, China Natural Resources (CHNR) was down 1.97, the US Oil Trust ETF (USO) down 1.67 on another drop in oil, and the DUG ultrashort oil & gas ETF jumped 62 cents. We added that to our portfolio today. In addition, AgFeed Industries (FEED) had a difficult session, down 1.46 today.

Recent Chart of the Week Activision (AVTI) gained 38 cents and set a new all-time highs. Chindex (CHDX) jumped 69 cents. Other than that, most stocks were up or down just fractions.

However, many in the junior oil group did give it back. ROYL closed at 9, down 2.09, giving back a chunk of its recent gains, Omni Energy Services (OMNI) gave back 57c and MXC was off 91 cents

Stepping back and reviewing the hourly chart patterns, the indices were up in the morning, down in the afternoon, snapped back in the last hour but closed mixed on the session. A very tricky market indeed with the S&P looking head-and-shoulders like toppy here, but the Nasdaq 100 is holding up much better and no where near confirming yesterday’s test of the support lows on the S&P 500 near 1370.

So we'll see whether the blue chips or tech stocks will lead the way up or down. As of right now the indices are in what I would call neutral territory on the Nasdaq 100 and looking a bit more negative on the S&P 500.

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.