The stock market indices managed to eek out gains today with an afternoon comeback rally, but the morning part of the session was volatile. They opened with big up-gaps this morning, and ran hard for new highs for the entire rally on the S&P 500 just under 1340, but the Nasdaq 100, which did get up to 2352, was far from its high of last week. As a result, they stair-stepped their way lower in a sharp decline, a 5-wave move down to new session lows, taking out the early week’s support lows at 2324, reaching down to 2320. However, the S&P 500 did not confirm, and they worked their way back in a snapback rally for the rest of the session to get back into positive territory.

Net on the day, the Dow was up 32.85 at 12,426.75. The S&P 500 was up 2.91 at 1335.54, and the Nasdaq 100 up 4.47 at 2332.34.

Advance-declines were positive by 3 to 2 on both the New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq. Up/down volume was about 5 to 3 positive on New York on total volume of 870 million shares. Nasdaq traded just under 2 billion shares and had about a 2 to 1 positive volume ratio.

TheTechTrader.com board today was mixed for sure, but there were quite a few larger outstanding winners today. Leading the way on our board was hiSoft Technology International Ltd. (HSFT) up 2.26 to 20.25, Finisar Corp. (FNSR) 2.16 to 26.30, Cubist Pharmaceuticals Inc. (CBST) 1.28 to 30.29, Silicon Motion Technology Corp. (SIMO) 1.51 to 9.42, Biolase Technology, Inc. (BLTI) 97 cents to 5.81, Elan Corp. plc (ELN) 44 cents to 7.59, Curis Inc. (CRIS) 53 cents to 4.22, and Advanced Battery Technologies, Inc. (ABAT) 41 cents to 2.48.

In addition, Blue Dolphin Energy Company (BDCO) advanced 40 cents to 8.30, Amarin Corporation plc (AMRN) 62 cents to 8.43, and IDT Corporation (IDT) 40 cents to 28.22,

In the larger-cap sector, Goldman Sachs (GS) gained 2.98 to 161.89, and it was up all day.

Most of the larger-cap stocks did not have a good day. Some examples included Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN) down 2.53 to 182.76, Chipotle Mexican Grill, Inc. (CMG) down 2.26 to 275.76, Brigham Exploration Co. (BEXP) 1.69 to 35.66, Molycorp, Inc. (MCP) 3.43 to 62.06, Northern Oil and Gas, Inc. (NOG) 1.48 to 24.16, Travelzoo Inc. (TZOO) 2.98 to 77.88, and VirnetX Holding Corp (VHC) 1.62 to 25.88.

In addition, ultra-short ETF Direxion Daily Financial Bear 3X Shares (FAZ) lost 1.22 to 38.10.

Stepping back and reviewing the hourly chart patterns, the indices were up sharply at the get-go and reached their session highs early on before pulling back sharply in a 5-wave decline, which reached its session lows just before lunch hour. At that point they worked their way slowly back in a steady rise throughout the rest of the session, and backed and filled into the close to finish positive on the session.

Still, despite the potential rollover patterns here, the indices have not cracked key support, and we’ll be watching today’s lows at 2320 NDX and near 1330-31 on the S&P 500 to see if that support can hold and they can still move higher.

Whether this is a consolidation for more upside or whether it’s a topping pattern should soon be resolved.

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