The day started out with a gap down and a very sharp sell-off that reached under 2210 on the NDX and near 1251.50 on the SPX. The subsequent action was a sharp bounce followed by an hour-long consolidation, and then the indices really took off, with the NDX running from 2215 to 2234. The SPX didn't quite match the NDX rally, moving from 1255 to 1258. In the last couple hours they drifted and rolled back in the last 10-15 minutes to close mixed.

Net on the day, the Dow closed down 18.46 at 11,555.03. The S&P 500 was up 0.77 at 1257.54, less than a point off the high. The Nasdaq 100 was down 0.41 at 2229.86, about 5 points off its high.

Advance-declines were about 16 1/2 to 13 positive on the New York Stock Exchange and 15 1/2 to 11 positive on Nasdaq. Up/down volume was 256 million up and 200 million down on New York, on very quiet total volume of 457 million shares traded. Nasdaq traded 965 million shares with about a 6 to 4 positive volume ratio.

TheTechTrader.com board was definitely quiet volume-wise, but there was some price action. Leading the way was American International Group, Inc. (AIG) up 5.05 to 59.38, and Molycorp, Inc. (MCP), which jumped 4.09 to 49.44.

Other gainers of note included Goldman Sachs (GS) up 2.23 to 169.83, and Rare Element Resources Ltd. (REE), in a very strong rare-earth-elements group, up 1.57 to 11.73. Apple Inc. (AAPL) jumped 1.08 to 324.68.

All other stocks that were up on our board today were up less than a point in smaller fractions. A few examples of those were Magnum Hunter Resources Corp. (MHR), which completed an acquisition, up 49 cents to 7.21; Ciena (CIEN) up 56 cents to 20.96; and Amtech Systems Inc. (ASYS) up 68 cents to 26.44.

On the downside, the only point-plus losers on our board were Cree Inc. (CREE) down 1.05 to 66.91, and Motricity, Inc. (MOTR) 1.14 to 19.01.

Stepping back and reviewing the hourly chart patterns, the indices dropped sharply at the opening and then reversed sharply and ripped back up to close not far off the session highs for the day. Despite the fact they were mixed on the session, they gave a good account of themselves today.

We’ll see how it goes tomorrow, but the market passed its test today.

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