The stock market indices ended mixed today after a wild afternoon. They started out mixed, moved up in the morning and had solid gains, but just could not get through overhead resistance. Then they went into a sideways consolidation for a couple hours. They got quite narrow by midday, but then began to roll over. When they occurred, they accelerated quickly to the downside and plunged to the bottom of the declining channel on the Nasdaq 100. When the NDX took out support substantially and dropped to 2200, the S&P 500 also made nominal new lows, but it didn’t actually accelerate, which set up a positive divergence. The indices reached a -1394 negative take on the New York Stock Exchange, at which point the intensity abated and stocks snapped back late in the last hour bringing the S&P 500 and Dow back in the positive column.

Net on the day, the Dow was up 64.25 at 11,961.52, about 90 points off its low. The S&P 500 was up 2.22 at 1267.64, about 9 points off its low, and the Nasdaq 100 jumped 20 points off its low to close down 9.08 at 2199.93.

Advance-declines managed to edge back up, but remained negative by about 16 to 13 on the New York Stock Exchange. They went into the positive column on Nasdaq by 1330 to 1255. However, up/down volume was a little less than 5 to 4 negative on New York. Nasdaq traded just under 1.9 billion with about a 2 to 1 negative volume ratio.

On TheTechTrader.com board, many stocks that we traded had an excellent day, including some of the ultra-shorts during the afternoon session when we traded them. Some of the winners included Coffee Holding Co.Inc. (JVA) up 1.36 to 14.09, Cubist Pharmaceuticals Inc. (CBST) 1.07 to 34.76, Oncothyreon Inc (ONTY) 45 cents to 7.83, The Kroger Co. (KR) 1.04 to 23.99, Hydrogenics Corp. (HYGS) 97 cents to 6.41, RiT Technologies Ltd. (RITT) 1.03 to 10.09, School Specialty Inc. (SCHS) 2.27 to 14.56, Odyssey Marine Exploration Inc. (OMEX) 26 cents to 3.38, and Acura Pharmaceuticals Inc. (ACUR) 43 cents to 4.06.

Energy Transfer Equity, L.P. (ETE) was the big winner, up 3.53 to 46.00 even.

On the downside, some of the large-cap stocks fell sharply, although Nasdaq large caps did come back. Apple Inc. (AAPL) closed down 1.59 to 325.16, 7 points off its low. Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN) closed a few points off its low, down 2.33 to 183.65. LSB Industries Inc. (LXU) dropped 2.63 to 40.54, MAKO Surgical Corp. (MAKO) 1.42 to 27.07, and Molycorp, Inc. (MCP) 2.14 to 48.02, trading as low as 46.50 today.

Stepping back and reviewing the hourly chart patterns, the indices were up in the morning, flat by late morning, and in early afternoon rolled over hard to new multi-week pullback lows on the Nasdaq 100 near 2180, and to 1258 on the S&P 500. They then rallied late in the session to bring the S&P 500 and Dow back into the positive column. However, they closed at declining top line, moving average and lateral price resistance.

We’ll have to see if there’s any kind of follow-through breakout, because at this point that was nothing more than a technical snapback and not a breakout. We’ll see if they’re trying to put a bottom in this zone or not.

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