The stock market indices had an up-day today, but it was disappointing. The session started out with a big gap up. The indices ran to overhead resistance near 1765 on the Nasdaq 100 and as high as 1042.50 on the S&P 500. A steady decline ensued early within the first hour that took the indices back down to 1720 on the NDX, 45 points off its high, and 1018 on the SPX. A late rally snapped the indices back to resistance.

Net on the day, the Dow was up just 57.14 to 9743.62 after being more than 115 points higher earlier in the session. The S&P 500 closed up 5.48 at 1028.06, more than 14 points off its high, and the Nasdaq 100 closed at 1734.60 up 6.34, 29 points off its high.

Advance/declines on the New York Stock Exchange were slightly negative by 39 issues, and were 2 to 1 negative on Nasdaq. Up/down volume was about 6 to 5 positive on New York with total volume of about 1.2 billion, and Nasdaq traded a little over 2.1 billion and had about an 11 to 10 negative plurality. A mixed session today despite the positive finish on the indices.

TheTechTrader.com board, as a result, was mixed, although there were several point-plus gainers and losers. Leading the way on the upside, BP Exploration plc (BP) came back strongly, up 2.56 on 49.8 million shares, closing at 31.91 at the high for the day. Transocean Ltd. (RIG) was up just 28 cents at 48.15, a point off the low.

The star for the day was low priced NexMed, Inc. (NEXMD), up 1.63 at 3.83, a very big percentage gain there on 2.1 million shares. Goldman Sachs (GS) advanced 1.18 at 132.26, and Apple Inc. (AAPL) was up 1.69 at 248.63.

On the downside, Dendreon Corp. (DNDN) lost 1.41 at 27.31, and Valassis Communications Inc. (VCI) gave back 1.99 at 29.08.

Ultra-short ETF IPath S&P 500 VIX Short-Term Futures ETN (VXX) dropped 1.29 at 28.70, but Direxion Daily Emrg Mkts Bear 3X Shares (EDZ) was the big loser there, down 2.69 at 45.40.

Other losers of note, OmniVision Technologies Inc. (OVTI) dropped 56 cents at 20.79, OMNOVA Solutions Inc. (OMN) 44 cents at 7.40, China Automotive Systems Inc. (CAAS) 48 cents at 16.18, China Agritech Inc. (CAGC) 55 cents at 10.19, and AutoNavi Holdings Limited (AMAP) 68 cents at 14.22.

Stepping back and reviewing the hourly chart patterns, the indices gapped up at the opening, ran up sharply to overhead resistance, and then rolled over hard for the rest of the day until the final 30-40 minutes when they snapped back to preserve some of the gains for the day. It was still a disappointing session. The best thing that could be said about today’s session was that the pullback held at the 3-day rising bottoms line and so secondary support held.

We’ll see if the indices can snap back tomorrow.

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