The indices closed mostly lower today, but it was basically a consolidation day. The indices were up early, backed off immediately, stabilized, came on again, and made their session highs on the Nasdaq 100 just before lunch hour. But then they pulled back down again, ran up again, as they basically were back and forth all day.

Net on the day the Dow was down just 14.74 at 9871.06, and the S&P 500 down 3 at 1073.19, but the Nasdaq 100 was up 0.64 at 1730.27.

Advance-declines were negative by 400 issues on New York and by 260 on Nasdaq. Up/down volume was 3 to 2 negative on New York on total volume of 1.1 billion. Nasdaq traded under 2 billion and had about an 11 to 8 positive volume ratio.

TheTechTrader.com board was mostly narrowly mixed today. A123 Systems (AONE), the recent new issues, was up 1.40 to 23.40, and RINO International (RINO) up another 1.70 to 26.47, touching 26.63, a new all-time high.

Those were the only point-plus gainers on our board.

The only point-plus losers were Goldman Sachs (GS), down 2.92 to 187.23, and the Direxion Financial Bull 3x Shares (FAS), down 2.30 to 85.91.

The flu vaccine stocks were very strong today, Sinovac (SVA) jumped 81 cents to 8.29 on 9 1/2 million and BioCryst Pharmaceuticals (BCRX), was up 61 cents to 8.92.

DryShips (DRYS) advanced 45 cents to 7.22 on 57 million shares.

The ultrashorts were firm today, with the Direxion Financial Bear 3x Shares (FAZ) up 51 cents to 19.35, the UltraShort Real Estate ProShares (SRS) up 27 cents to 9.91, the Direxion Small Cap 3x Bear (TZA) up 13 cents to 11.47, and the Direxion Large Cap Bear 3X Shares (BGZ) 12 cents to 20.17.

Stepping back and reviewing the hourly chart patterns, the indicices vacillated today, as five swings back and forth today basically resulted in a mixed but mostly lower close, but the indices still managed to hold their rising moving averages and trendlines. We’ll see if that’s significant or not.

The areas we’ll be watching tomorrow are the 1719-20 and then 1710 support areas on the NDX and the 1066 and 1060 levels on the SPX.

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