The stock market indices started the week off with a bang but finished with a wimper. They gapped up at the opening, ran to 2148 on the Nasdaq 100 to a new 2010 high. The S&P 500 jumped to just under 1196, and basically doubled-topped from the high of about a week and a half ago. They then sold off pretty sharply, reaching support and bouncing, consolidated late morning into early afternoon, and then rolled over hard in the afternoon to new session lows, reaching down toward the 2117 area on the NDX and under 1178 on the S&P 500. In the last 45 minutes they snapped back sharply and closed near resistance.

Net on the day, the Dow managed to gain 6.13 at 11,124.62, the S&P 500 1.12 at 1184.38, and the NDX up 3.97 at 2128.42.

Advance-declines were positive by about 145 issues on the New York Stock Exchange, but negative by about 3 to 2 on Nasdaq. Up/down volume was slightly negative on both indices. Total volume was about 930 million shares on New York, and about 1.9 billion shares on Nasdaq.

TheTechTrader.com board was mostly mixed, with some point-plus gainers and losers. Leading the way was Avanir Pharmaceuticals (AVNR) up 2.38 to 4.80, a huge percentage gain, but that was about 1 point off its high. Sourcefire, Inc. (FIRE) was up 1.58 to 25.17, and JinkoSolar Holding Co., Ltd. (JKS) up 4.99 to 35.14, a big gain there.

In addition, Apple Inc. (AAPL) jumped 3.20 to 304.18, Golden Minerals Company (AUMN) 1.59 to 27.84, amd Polypore International Inc. (PPO) 2.13 to 35.40.

Those were the point-plus gainers on our board today.

Point-plus losers included Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN) down 2.65 to 162.58, Cree Inc. (CREE) 1.18 to 50.11, Motricity, Inc. (MOTR) 1.14 to 20.82, and Radware Ltd. (RDWR) 1.38 to 33.92. Rare Element Resources Ltd. (REE) lost another 1.31 to 10.05, and ZAGG Inc. (ZAGG) dropped 1.00 to 7.30.

Stepping back and reviewing the hourly chart patterns, the indices jumped at the opening, sold off sharply, consolidated mid-day, and then rolled over in a 3-wave decline, but managed to snap back at the end of the day to salvage very slow gains at the close despite the mixed to negative technicals.

We’ll see what that means. Tomorrow is election day and Wednesday is the FOMC meeting. So, we could see some choppiness, and then perhaps some real action after that.

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