The stock market indices started out on a flat note, but the path was interesting. The day started out with a little surge to the upside. They backed off, tested support successfully, and then ran to new rally highs, reaching 2037 on the Nasdaq 100 and 1168.68 on the S&P 500. The Dow reached 11,030.50 for its high.

The indices then pulled back in the morning, retested support, and bounced, and then went into a sideways, narrow coiling action, which basically kept the S&P 500 in a 1 1/2 point trading range for several hours.

In the afternoon when they couldn’t break out and started to roll over, they accelerated, plunging from 2036 to 2021 on the NDX, and from 1168 to 1162 on the SPX. Only a last 15 minutes bounce off the lows prevented them from closing down on the day.

Net on the day, the Dow was up 3.63 today at 11,010.11. The S&P 500 was up 0.17 at 1165.32, and the Nasdaq 100, even narrower, was down 0.05 at 2026.98.

Advance-declines were 16 to 13 positive on the New York Stock Exchange and 14 to 12 negative on Nasdaq. Up/down volume was just slightly flat on New Yor on total volume of just over 800 million shares. Very narrow, very quiet volume today. Nasdaq traded just over 1.5 billion shares, with about an 8 to 6 plurality.

TheTechTrader.com board, however, was active and mostly higher, and there were quite a few point-plus gainers. Golden Minerals Company (AUMN) was the star of the day today, up 5.20 to 24.50.

Among a very strong junior solar group today, JinkoSolar Holding Co., Ltd. (JKS) snapped back 3.87 to 30.63. Canadian Solar Inc. (CSIQ) was up 75 cents to 16.24, ReneSola Ltd. (SOL) 66 cents to 13.76, LDK Solar Co., Ltd. (LDK) 1.52 to 11.32, and Ascent Solar Technologies, Inc. (ASTI) 1.17 to 4.57, a big percentage gain there on an announcement of a new technology. Trina Solar Ltd. (TSL) gained 1.16 to 29.69,

So, there was solid performance on the junior solar group today, among others.

Other stocks of note included Radware Ltd. (RDWR) up 1.80 to 34.05, Cree Inc. (CREE) up 1.28 to 53.58, and Apple Inc. (AAPL) up 1.29 to 295.36, hitting an all-time new high today at 297.24 earlier in the day.

The only point-plus loser on the board today was Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN), down 2.52 to 153.03.

Other losers of note were Spreadtrum Communications Inc. (SPRD) down 43 cents to 11.49, Isilon Systems, Inc. (ISLN) down 68 cents to 25.46, and IDT Corporation (IDT) down 48 cents to 17.11. Goldman Sachs (GS) fell a small fraction today, down 46 cents to 152.20.

In addition, Delcath Systems Inc. (DCTH) gave back 45 cents to 8.43, Amtech Systems Inc. (ASYS) 63 cents to 17.42, and Acme Packet, Inc. (APKT) 70 cents to 34.63.

Stepping back and reviewing the hourly chart patterns, the indices vacillated back and forth, and then got very narrow by mid-afternoon, but then rolled over at the end of the day only to bounce in the last 15 minutes.

Net on the day, a narrow, lackluster day on fairly low volume, and so far, meaningless to the trend, but we’ll see how it goes tomorrow.

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