The stock market indices ended mixed and traded in choppy fashion all day today. The day started with a move up near the opening to test resistance, could not get through overhead resistance, came off sharply, and then bounced back just as sharply, with the Nasdaq 100 making nominal new highs and the S&P 500 failing to confirm.

At that point they rolled over in a 3-wave decline and reached their session lows just before noon, near 1152 SPX and 1996 NDX. But in the afternoon they started stair-stepping their way higher, slowly but steadily, and closed not too far off the session highs on the NDX, and about half way back up the ladder on the S&P 500.

Net on the day, the Dow was down 19.07 at 10,948.58. The S&P 500 was down 1.91 at 1158.06, but the Nasdaq 100 was up 5.11 at 2011.63.

Advance-declines were 16 to 13 negative on the New York Stock Exchange and 14 to 11 negative on Nasdaq. Up/down volume was 5 to 3 negative on New York, with total volume under 900 million today. Nasdaq traded about 1.8 billion, and had about an 11 to 6 positive ratio.

TheTechTrader.com board was fairly narrowly mixed. There were a few point-plus gainers today including Isilon Systems, Inc. (ISLN) up 1.26 to 25.14. McMoRan Exploration Co. (MMR), one of our swing trades, was up 1.15 to 18.00. Brigham Exploration Co. (BEXP) reached near its all-time high at 21.07 today, closing at 20.87, up 85 cents on more than 10 million traded.

Sourcefire, Inc. (FIRE) advanced 71 cents to 27.37, and Trina Solar Ltd. (TSL) 50 cents to 28.99. Those were some of the other upside highlights.

On the downside, point-plus losers included JinkoSolar Holding Co., Ltd. (JKS) down 1.18 to 28.57, and Transocean Ltd. (RIG) down 1.26 to 62.04.

Stepping back and reviewing the hourly chart patterns, the indices went back and forth today in trading ranges, but managed to close back up near the session highs on the NDX and near them on the S&P 500. Support held on a couple of occasions today, so we were happy to see that as technically the market is still in an upward mode and could move forward.

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