The stock market indices started out with a move to the upside, which was the high for the day as they came down in steady fashion until mid-afternoon. They managed in the last hour to snapback and close the S&P 500 and Dow in plus territory, though the Nasdaq 100, despite bouncing back 10 points, still was down today.

Net on the day, the Dow was up 23.31 at 12,400.03, the S&P 500 was up 0.46 at 1332.87, and the Nasdaq 100 was down 8.38 at 2334.54.

Advance-declines were 16 to 13 1/2 positive on the New York Stock Exchange and about 14 to 12 positive on Nasdaq. Up/down volume was nearly dead-even flat, just slightly positive, on New York, with total volume of about 750 million shares. Nasdaq traded 1.5 billion shares and had a slightly negative volume plurality.

So, it was a mixed session with mixed technicals.

TheTechTrader.com board, however, had some outstanding gainers today. Molycorp, Inc. (MCP), one of our day trading issues, was up 7.16 to 66.41, and Travelzoo Inc. (TZOO) advanced 6.77 to 76.29. Those were two of our big gainers today.

Other gainers of note included Westport Innovations Inc. (WPRT) up 1.91 to 25.91, Majesco Entertainment Co. (COOL) 62 cents to 3.90, Clean Energy Fuels Corp. (CLNE) 1.09 to 17.41, Optimer Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (OPTR) 67 cents to 13.80, Avalon Rare Metals Inc. (AVL) 28 cents to 9.23 in a strong rare-earth group, and Skilled Healthcare Group, Inc. (SKH) 1.07 to 15.22. Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN) was up 2.81 to 182.94.

On the downside, point-plus losers included OmniVision Technologies Inc. (OVTI) down 2.69 to 33.50, SodaStream International Ltd. (SODA) down 4.10 to 42.70 on news of a secondary, Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. (GS) 1.33 to 158.90, and Apple Inc. (AAPL) 3.37 to 341.19.

Stepping back and reviewing the hourly chart patterns, the indices opened strong, stair-stepped their way lower until late in the afternoon when they snapped back to put the S&P 500 and Dow in positive territory, but closed in the overall market pretty mixed today.

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