The stock market indices managed to eke out a gain today, but the path to those gains was a little choppy.

The day started out with a sharp move higher. The Nasdaq 100 got to 1831.62 and the S&P 500 got up to 1080.78, and then they sold off sharply to new lows for the day. But they held right at support near 1810 NDX and 1070 SPX, and then began a move back upward. By mid-afternoon they stalled and ground back and forth, firming up a little bit in the last half hour to close in the plus column.

Net on the day, the Dow was up another 18.24 at 10,216.27, the S&P 500 up only 79 cents at 1078.75, and the NDX up 6.24 at 1821.03.

Technicals were negative by 19 to 11 on declines versus advances on the New York Stock Exchange and by more than 1000 on Nasdaq at 1856 losing issues to 811 winners. However, up/down volume was only 4 to 3 negative on New York with total volume under 3/4 of a billion. Very light today. Nasdaq volume was positive by 10 to 7 with nearly 1.75 billion traded. So, it was a mixed session today.

TheTechTrader.com board, as a result, was mixed today. Most of the stocks were very narrowly changed today, but the majority of them were on the downside. However, there were several point-plus gainers today. Leading the way today was InfoLogix, Inc. (IFLG), which jumped 1.37 at 6.17, a substantial percentage gain there.

Larger-cap stocks included Google Inc. (GOOG) up 8.34 to 475.83, Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN) up 2.25 to 119.51, BP Exploration plc (BP) up 2.71 to 36.76, Transocean Ltd. (RIG) up 2.23 to 54.06, and Cree Inc. (CREE) up 1.05 to 67.17.

Two of the ultra-short ETFs actually gained today. The Direxion Daily Emrg Mkts Bear 3X Shares (EDZ) was up 1.10 at 41.32 and the Direxion Daily Small Cap Bear 3X Shares (TZA) up 1.17 at 37.78.

On the downside, loss leaders included Apple Inc. (AAPL) down 2.34 at 257.29, as consumer reports failed to recommend their new iPhone. The only other point-plus loser was Valassis Communications Inc. (VCI), down 1.89 at 30.10.

Stepping back and reviewing the hourly chart patterns, the indices were up sharply at the opening, down sharply by mid-morning, and then had a slow grind back up the rest of the day to bring the indices just back up to the plus column. With technicals as negatively confirming as they were today, the market appears to be losing momentum and could back off more substantially over the next couple days to retest.

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