The stock market indices started with a gap up today, but quickly sold off reaching new pullback lows on the Nasdaq 100 in the 1992 area. At that point the S&P 500 retested yesterday’s late lows near the 1182 area but held. That triggered a 5-wave snapback rally. In the last hour they rolled over, took back nearly half of the rally, but bounced in the last 10 minutes to close up on the day.

Net on the day, the Dow closed up 53.28 at 11,045.27, the S&P 500 up 7.65 at 1191.36, and the NDX up just 1.34 at 2007.59.

Advance-declines were about 3 to 2 positive on the New York Stock Exchange but positive by only 135 issues on Nasdaq. Up/down volume was 2 1/2 to 1 positive on New York on total volume of a little over 1.4 billion. Nasdaq traded nearly 2.7 billion, but only had a 14 to 13 positive ratio.

TheTechTrader.com board was mixed. There were several point-plus gainers. Goldman Sachs Group (GS) advanced 3.97 to 157.01. Integrated Silicon Solutions (ISSI) was the star of the day, up a whopping 2.45 to 13.17. American International Group (AIG) jumped 2.14 to 39.51, and Delcath Systems (DCTH) 1.05 at 15.85. Those were the point-plus gainers today on our board.

Other stocks of note on the plus side included Pixelworks Inc. (PXLW) at 4.89 up 45 cents and Las Vegas Sands Corp. (LVS) at 25.15 up 46 cents. Cree Inc. (CREE) jumped 73 cents to 75.99, Brigham Exploration (BEXP) 44 cents to 18.51, and Biopharma Inc. (ABIO) 30 cents to 5.25.

On the downside, point-plus losers included China Agritech (CAGC) down 1.31 to 17.12 in a weak Chinese sector, Amazon.com (AMZN) 2.67 to 139.35, and the Direxion Daily Emerging Markets Bear 3x (EDZ) down 1.05 to 43.23.

Other losers of note: Direxion Daily Financial Bear 3x (FAZ) backed off 47 cents to 12.25, Direxion Daily Large Cap Bear 3x (BGZ) 27 cents to 12.96, and Houston American Energy Corp. (HUSA) 41 cents at 12.95 in a weaker junior oil group.

Dendreon (DNDN) gave back 42 cents to 39.62, and Planar Systems Inc. (PLNR) had a very difficult day after reporting earnings, closing at 2.63, down 57 cents today.

Stepping back and reviewing the hourly chart patterns, the indices spent the morning stair-stepping lower on the NDX, but the SPX held yesterday’s lows to set up a positive divergence. That resulted in a 5-wave mid-day rally, but they gave back half of it before the day was over before a final 10-minute bounce added to the gains for the day.

So, it was an up-session, more of a snapback-type session from recent losses. We’ll see what that means. Right now we’re watching carefully overhead resistance at 2015 and 2025 on the NDX, and 1195 and 1200 on the SPX.

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