The indices finally suffered a down day, but even with that they rallied back late in the afternoon to pare the losses.

The day started out with a slight move higher and then a sharp move lower that took out initial support and moving averages on the hourly charts on the Nasdaq 100, but held them on the S&P 500. By mid-morning when they failed to extend lower and held the support for the last several sessions, they rallied back in a 3-wave move that severely tested resistance and the morning highs on the SPX. In the last half hour or so, they backed off into the close.

Net on the day the Dow was down 39.22 at 9280.97, the S&P 500 off 2.93 at 1002.72, and the Nasdaq 100 down 14.05 at 1614.44.

Advance-declines were negative by 260 issues on New York, but 2 to 1 negative on Nasdaq. Up/down volume was 13 to 5 positive on New York and 2 to 1 negative on Nasdaq.

TheTechTrader.com board was mostly narrowly mixed, with several outstanding issues both higher and lower.

On the plus side, the Direxion Financial Bull 3x Shares (FAS) gained 6 to 71.90 on 43 million shares. Goldman Sachs (GS) advanced 3.47 to 168.54, Potash (POT) 3.93 at 99.56, and JP Morgan (JPM) 1.57 to 41.78. Also in the strong financial group, Wells Fargo (WFC) gained 1.52 to 28.02.

Airlines firmed a bit. United (UAUA) was outstanding today, up 92 cents to 5.92.

Low-priced insurance company Radian (RDN) soared 3.05 to 6.72 on 18.7 million shares, an 83% gain.

Other than that, there were mostly mixed stocks on our board.

On the downside the iShares FTSE/Xinhua China 25 Index (FXI) lost 1 to 41.79. The UltraShort Real Estate ProShares (SRS) lost 1.10 to 12.24, a new all-time low.

Stepping back and reviewing the hourly chart patterns, the indices broke moving average support on the NDX, but held them on the SPX. Despite the SPX’s new highs recently, the NDX has not been able to confirm and is now leading on the downside. We’ll see if that’s significant. I’m still looking for a top in this time frame.

Harry Boxer is a technical consultant to many Wall Street hedge funds and large institutional traders, and author of TheTechTrader.com.