The stock market indices started out with a bang, gapping up and running to new rally highs that touched 1900 on the Nasdaq 100 and near 1121 on the S&P 500. They then had a strong 3-wave sell-off after the Consumer Confidence Index came out negatively, dropping to 1880 on the NDX and 1110 on the SPX.

They bounced, took back about 50% of the losses, and then retested. When that was successful, they managed to firm up in the afternoon, but in the last half hour they pulled back once again and closed narrowly mixed on the session.

Net on the day, the Dow was up just 12.26 at 10,537.69, the S&P 500 was down 1.17 at 1113.84, and the Nasdaq 100 was down 1.54 at 1888.81.

Advance/declines, however, were negative by 360 issues on the New York Stock Exchange, and by about 380 issues on Nasdaq. Up/down volume was about 6 to 5 negative on New York with total volume of 1.1 billion. Nasdaq was about 2 to 1 negative with total volume of just under 2 billion.

TheTechTrader.com board was mostly lower today by about 2 to 1. Leading the way to the upside was Apple Inc. (AAPL), up 4.80 at 264.08, and Google Inc. (GOOG), up 3.66 at 492.63.

The only other point-plus gainer on the board was Transocean Ltd. (RIG) up 1.10 at 47.17.

Fractional gainers were mostly very small fractional and not much to speak of.

On the downside, Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN) lost 1.27 to 117.13, Cree Inc. (CREE) 2.60 at 73.03, Dendreon Corp. (DNDN) 1.58 to 34.86, IDT Corporation (IDT) 1.19 to 17.63, and OmniVision Technologies Inc. (OVTI) 1.15 to 24.35.

In addition, junior solar Trina Solar Ltd. (TSL) was down 1.20 at 23.05.

Stepping back and reviewing the hourly chart patterns, the indices gapped up at the opening, sold off sharply in the morning, and then bounced around, vacillating in a fairly narrow range on the SPX and a little wider on the NDX. Nevertheless, it was a mixed day, more of a consolidation-type day, but support managed to hold despite the appearance of what looks like 2-day head-and-shoulders tops forming.

We’ll see which way they go tomorrow.

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