The futures were strong before the opening after Hurricane Rita was not as severe as most people thought it may be, and the market gapped up, making new snapback rally highs.  Then they went into a consolidation period for most of the morning and a promising-looking one.  But when no rally materialized, they faded in the afternoon, broke the morning lows, and then went down for most of the afternoon.  A last-hour rally snapped them back and brought the indices back into positive territory, but just slightly so.

Net on the day the Dow was up 24,the S&P up about 1/3 of a point, the NDX up just over 1, and the SOX a little bit more than 2.

The technicals were positive on both exchanges, with advance-declines 18 to 14 on New York and about 9 to 7 on Nasdaq. Up/down volume was about 4 to 3 positive on both exchanges, with total volume of more than 1.5 billion on New York and a little more than 1.4 billion on Nasdaq.

TheTechTrader.com board was mostly higher.  The outstanding stock on the board today was Dynamic Materials (BOOM), which had a key breakout above five-week price and moving average resistance, closing at 42.69, up 2.53 on nearly 2.3 million.

Other stocks of note, Momenta Pharmaceuticals (MNTA) was up 1.68 on 1.5 million.  It was one of our Charts of the Week this week. Cutera (CUTR), a former Chart of the Week, was up 1.22.  Forward Industries (FORD) was up 62 cents, Global Industries (GLBL) 59 cents, Kendle International (KNDL) 51 cents, Vertex Pharmaceuticals (VRTX) 47 cents, and Distributed Energy Systems (DESC) up 33 cents.

Most other stocks on my board were fractionally mixed. Leading losers were Abatix (ABIX) down 99 cents and DayStar Technologies (DSTI) 64 cents.

Stepping back and reviewing the hourly chart patterns, the indices snapped back to declining tops lines at the highs today and failed at resistance, pulling back to retest before snapping back at the close.

We'll see if that late snapback was significant or just a retest of resistance.

Good trading!