The markets had a pretty flat session on Friday.  As I indicated before the opening, I thought today might be a narrow day before the weekend with Hurricane Rita approaching.  And the indices, indeed, did open lower and then meandered about for a few hours, edging slightly higher at mid-day and then flattening out after lunch hour, but they did stage a mid-afternoon rally that took the indices to new highs and broke them out across key short-term resistance. Unfortunately,they then pulled them back in a corrective-looking manner towards the close.

Net on the day the Dow was down 2 1/2, the S&P 500 up 0.67, and the NDX up 4.39, with the SOX up 3.61, which is probably the reason why the NDX was even up today.

The technicals were marginally positive on New York by 110 issues but more so on Nasdaq by more than 700 issues.  Up/down volume was positive on both exchanges, by 4 to 3 on New York on less than 1.5 billion traded and by 3 to 2 positive on Nasdaq on nearly 1.6 billion traded.

TheTechTrader.com board was mostly higher, led by Dynamic Materials (BOOM), which announced a 2 to 1 split before the opening, gapped up and ran strong.  It closed up 4.76 on more than 2 1/2 million shares, and just pennies off its high for the day.

Other stocks of note, Kendle International (KNDL) was up 1.05, Broadcom (BRCM) up 84 cents, Energy Conversion Devices (ENER) up 64 cents, Convera (CNVR) up 34 cents, Forward Industries (FORD) 66 cents, Escalon Medical (ESMC) up 50 cents, and Bookham (BKHM) up 25 cents.

In addition, SYNERGX Systems (SYNX) was up 40 cents and Vertex Pharmaceuticals (VRTX) up 40 cents.

On the downside, Streicher Mobile Fueling (FUEL) gave back 65 cents after yesterday's strong day and Panacos Pharmaceuticals (PANC) was up 50 cents.

Stepping back and reviewing the hourly chart patterns, as indicated earlier we had a significant short-term breakout in mid-afternoon today that failed at key secondary overhead resistance near at 1579-80 on the NDX and backed off in the last hour.

The S&P ran up to overhead resistance in the 1219-20 zone and backed off to close near 1215 1/2, and on its short-term two-day rising trendline.

So we'll see Monday whether we get a follow-through and break back out, or whether this is just a snapback in a newly formed downtrend and they head further south.

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.