The markets had a sloppy session today, but early weakness which looked ominous turned out to be the lows for the day. The indices rallied sharply in the morning, got to nominal new highs on the Nasdaq 100, but fell short on the S&P 500. They meandered sideways for the rest of the day, trying to break out again but couldn’t do so.

Net on the day the Dow was down 41.34 at 9778.86 and the S&P 500 down 3.64 at 1064.66, but the Nasdaq 100 managed to gain 6.34 to 1731.58.

Advance-declines were negative by 2 to 1 on New York and 7 to 6 on Nasdaq. Up/down volume was 7 to 4 negative on New York on total volume of under 1.2 billion. Nasdaq traded over 2 1/2 billion and had about a 13 to 9 positive volume ratio.

TheTechTrader.com board was mostly narrowly changed, but there were several point-plus gainers of note. In particular, American International Group (AIG), which we day-traded successfully today, jumped 8.49 to 48.40, touching just under 50 at one point, on 113.7 million shares.

The junior medical/biotech area was strong, as Hansen Medical (HNSN) soared 1.09 to 4.22 on 5 million shares. Orexigen Therapeutics (OREX) jumped 1.37 to 10.34 on 3 million, and OncoGenex Pharmaceuticals (OGXI) 2.83 to 39.01. Vivus (VVUS) added 44 cents to 11.48 on 7 1/2 million. CEL-SCI (CVM), , leapt 30 percent to 1.93 on 66 million and SIGA Technologies (SIGA) jumped 69 cents to 8.39 on a half million

Other stocks of note, United (UAUA) 88 cents to 9.40 on 15.7 million, Portfolio positions RINO International (RINO) 81 cents to 14.34 on more than a million shares and China TransInfo (CTFO) was up 43 cents to 8.32.

The Direxion Financial Bear 3x Shares (FAZ) was up 49 cents to 20.69, and UltraShort Real Estate ProShares (SRS) up 33 cents to 9.45

On the downside, Direxion Financial Bull 3x Shares (FAS) dropped 2.24 to 84.79, and the U.S. Oil Fund ETF (USO) 1.27 to 35.85, but there were no other point-plus losers on our board.

Stepping back and reviewing the hourly chart patterns, the indices went down at the opening, rallied back sharply and then meandered sideways in a consolidative pattern for the rest of the session. The bulls are not giving this up very quickly, and the bears certainly are having a very difficult time trying to gain control.

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