The stock market indices ended the week narrowly mixed, but had some swings in between. The day started out with a big gap down. They moved down sharply, tested key support, held, and then bounced sharply. They narrowed to mid-day to reach their highs for the day at new snapback highs at 1323 on the S&P 500 and 2317 on the Nasdaq 100. In the afternoon they had a 3-wave decline that pulled them back down to take back about half the gains, but then snapped back in the last 10 minutes to bolster the closing figures.

Net on the day, the Dow was up 56.68 at 12,341.83, and the S&P 500 up 5.16 at 1319.68. The Nasdaq 100, however, was down 3.67 at 2307.58, due in part to Apple Inc. (AAPL), but especially Google Inc. (GOOG), which got hammered.

Advance declines were 20 to 9 positive on the New York Stock Exchange and 17 to 9 positive on Nasdaq. Up/down volume was about 2 to 1 positive on New York on total volume just over 1 billion. Nasdaq traded over 1.7 billion and had about a 10 to 7 positive ratio.

TheTechTrader.com board was mostly higher, with plenty of point-plus gainers. Among those were Ametek Inc. (AME) up 2.45 to 44.79, Acorda Therapeutics, Inc. (ACOR) up 2.02 to 29.15, Zhongpin, Inc. (HOGS) 1.92 to 16.13, MBIA Inc. (MBI) 1.55 to 10.48, and Exact Sciences Corporation (EXAS) 50 cents to 7.76.

The pharmaceutical sector had a few gainers today including Cubist Pharmaceuticals Inc. (CBST) 1.91 to 32.27, Amylin Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (AMLN) 1.83 to 13.09, and Momenta Pharmaceuticals Inc. (MNTA) 1.35 to 17.04. In addition, Dendreon Corp. (DNDN) climbed 83 cents to 42.40, Amarin Corporation plc (AMRN) 24 cents to 8.77, and Jazz Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (JAZZ) 35 cents to 34.52.

Other stocks of note included Kongzhong Corp. (KONG) up 82 cents to 10.78, Aegean Marine Petroleum Network Inc. (ANW) 99 cents to 9.16, Sky-mobi Limited (MOBI) 93 cents to 15.53, L & L Energy, Inc. (LLEN) 90 cents to 6.65, Knoll Inc. (KNL) 2.05 to 21.63, Foot Locker, Inc. (FL) 1.03 to 21.50, Graco Inc. (GGG) 2.05 to 45.32, Golar LNG Ltd. (GLNG) 1.17 to 27.64, and IEC Electronics Corp. (IEC) 1.41 to 8.50, a big percentage gain there.

Shanda Games Limited (GAME) gained 50 cents to 7.42, Travelzoo Inc. (TZOO) 1.04 to 78.81, International Business Machines Corp. (IBM) 1.24 to 166.21, and Chipotle Mexican Grill, Inc. (CMG) 2.22 to 285.13.

On the downside today, Google Inc. (GOOG) dropped a whopping 47.83 to 530.68 on disappointing earnings, an 8 1/4% loss and a key break of six months of support to the lowest level since last October. Apple Inc. (AAPL) lost 4.96 to 327.48, and closed right at key, four-month support and may be on the brink of a breakdown. In addition, Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN) lost 1.81 to 180.01, and SodaStream International Ltd. (SODA) was down 1.41 to 43.38.

Stepping back and reviewing the hour chart patterns, the indices were down sharply at the opening the first few minutes, and then rallied the next several hours to midday when they reached their highs. A 3-wave decline brought them back to retrace about 50% of the earlier rally gains, but net after all was said and done was mixed on the day.

We’ll have to see where that leads us next week as the overall trend remains down, but on the verge of potentially breaking back out. We’ll see if that occurs or not on Monday.

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