The stock market indices had a quieter session today on the Jewish holiday with the indices closing narrowly mixed, mostly ahead but just narrowly, and with lower volume on the New York Stock Exchange.

The day started with a gap up. They ran up on the Nasdaq 100 to just a point beneath last week’s high of 1975. The S&P 500 fell far short, reaching near 1178 in the morning, about 2 1/2-3 points away from last week’s high. They rolled over hard, tested support, and actually took it out slightly, but then snapped back when there was no follow-through, retested successfully, and then came on in the afternoon. Only in the last 10–15 minutes did they back off again to pare back nominal gains.

Net on the day, the Dow closing up only 11.56 at 10,907.42, the S&P 500 up a nickel at 1173.27, and the Nasdaq 100 up 6.74 at 1967.96. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index (SOXX) was up 2.53 at 360.90.

Advance-declines were ahead by just 80 issues on the New York Stock Exchange and by 200 issues on Nasdaq. Up/down volume was about 3 to 2 negative on New York on total volume of just 880 million. Nasdaq traded just under 2 billion shares, and was just slightly to the plus side on advancing/declining volume.

TheTechTrader.com board was narrowly mixed across the board. There were only a few stocks up or down as much as a point. Salix Pharmaceuticals (SLXP) at 37.41 gained 1.74 on some positive drug news. Encorium Group (ENCO) went as high as 5.15, but closed at 3.28, up 1.17 on nearly 10 million traded. Those were the only point-plus gainers on our board.

Other stocks of note on the plus side, China Armco Metals (CNAM) at 9.50 was up 85 cents on more than 2 million, a nice percentage move. Finesar (FNSR) gained 55 cents to 15.94, Integrated Silicon Solutions (ISSI) 54 cents to 10.75, L&L Energy (LLEN) 64 cents to 12.13, and Sequenom (SQNM) 42 cents to 6.57. These were the larger fractional gainers.

On the downside, RINO International (RINO) lost 42 cents to 23.01, Somaxon Pharmaceuticals (SOMX) 23 cents to 8.60, Las Vegas Sands Corp. (LVS) l65 cents to 21.21, JAZZ Pharmaceuticals (JAZZ) 57 cents at 11.44, Dendreon (DNDN) 76 cents to 36.58, Clean Energy Fuels (CLNE) 59 cents to 21.26, and China Agritech (CAGC) 91 cents to 26.83.

Stepping back and reviewing the hourly chart patterns, the indices were up near the opening, down sharply mid-morning, and then rallied in a 3-wave advance to the afternoon highs but fell short of the morning highs, still closing slightly higher for most of the indices except the OEX, which was down 0.28 today. All in all a lackluster session, but still the indices managed to hold support.

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