The stock market indices swung back and forth most of the session, but a late, sharp rally brought them back into the plus column and they closed not too far off the session highs with gains on the day.

The day started with a gap up, making the session highs at that point. Then the indices dropped, popped and dropped again to reach the session lows within about 90 minutes after they opened. A 3-wave rally brought them back to retest the highs, but they fell short, particularly in the S&P 500, and then sold off rather steadily until about a half hour to go, at which point they snapped back very sharply, and closed positive once again.

Net on the day, the Dow was up 24.71 at 10,434.17, the S&P 500 up 1.43 at 1116.04, and the Nasdaq 100 up 5.34 at 1910.65.

Technicals were nearly flat as declines outnumbered advances by 28 issues on the New York Stock Exchange, but advances outnumbered declines on Nasdaq by 18 issues. So, a very narrow day today. Up/down volume was about 7 to 4 1/2 negative on New York, but 9 1/2 to 8 positive on Nasdaq. Total volume on New York was just over 1.1 billion and on Nasdaq about 1.7 billion.

TheTechTrader.com board, as a result, was mixed with several point-plus gainers today, including portfolio position OmniVision Technologies Inc. (OVTI), which has been acting great of late, up 1.22 at 22.85. Transocean Ltd. (RIG) was up 2.41 at 49.43, continuing its snapback from recent heavy losses. Cirrus Logic Inc. (CRUS) jumped 1.50 at 17.00, and Acme Packet, Inc. (APKT) 1.06 at 29.37.

Apple Inc. (AAPL) was up 4.62 at 271.87, reaching an all-time new high at 272.90. InfoLogix, Inc. (IFLG) gained 1.06 at 6.25 on 6.9 million shares, snapping back from its recent pullback.

On the downside point-plus losers included Baidu, Inc. (BIDU) down 2.34 at 72.47, Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN) down 1.01 at 125.89, and Dendreon Corp. (DNDN) off 1.11 at 38.46. Google Inc. (GOOG) lost 1.19 at 500.08.

Those were all of the point-plus gainers and losers today.

Stepping back and reviewing the hourly chart patterns, the indices were volatile, being down in the morning, up late morning, and then back down mid-day before rallying early afternoon near the session highs, only to drop back sharply to retest the lows, but doing so successfully, and then snapping back late in the session. So, it was a narrower but volatile session, as the day was saved with a late snapback putting the indices back in the plus column. However, technicals were quite mixed and narrowly so, more of a consolidation day, perhaps.

We’ll see what tomorrow brings on quadruple witching options expiration day.

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