The markets ended mixed today in advance of the Fed announcement on interest rates tomorrow.  But the day started out with a promising gap up.  They immediately backed off and backed and filled but couldn't make any further headway, and sold off into the lunch hour.  In the afternoon they had a slow, steady climb back but it appeared rather corrective-looking & lacked thrust

However, the Nasdaq 100 did manage to get near its session highs near the end of the day.

Net on the day the Dow was down 11, the S&P 500 was up 1, and the Nasdaq 100 was up 5 ¾.  The SOX was up 3.

Reviewing the technicals, there were just 180 more advancers on New York and 33 more decliners on Nasdaq.  So, despite the fact that Nasdaq was up, breadth was rather poor & near flat.  Up/down volume was 8 to 6 positive on New York with 1.4 billion traded, and about a 9 to 7 ½ positive ratio on Nasdaq with 1 2/3 billion traded.

TheTechTrader.com board was fairly mixed.  There were a couple of outstanding issues.

BOOM, one of our Charts of the Week, opened strong and was strong all session, closing not far from the session highs, up 2.57 on 2 ¾ million shares.  Low-priced EGHT on an announcement with SBC jumped 80 cents on 37 million shares today. 

REDF advanced 83 cents and hit a new all-time high. NWRE jumped 86 cents.  ENER rose nearly a point and ESLR 50 cents in the alternative energy sector.

BCRX, one of last week's highlighted Charts of the Week, was up 40 cents, and RVSN, a current model portfolio position, up 43 cents.

On the downside, NMGC gave back 96 cents today after last week's big gains, and HURC was down 53 cents.  All other stocks on our board were just fractionally mixed today.

Stepping back and reviewing the hourly patterns, they ran up towards price resistance near 1700 on the NDX and 1264 on the S&P and then backed off.  The overall patterns can be construed as either a consolidation or topping process, and until it's completed the jury is still out.

Good trading!

Harry Boxer is a technical consultant to many Wall Street hedge funds and large institutional traders, and author of TheTechTrader.com, a real-time diary of his day, swing and intermediate-term trades. For more of Harry Boxer, sign up for a FREE 15-day trial to his Real-Time Technical Trading Diary, or sign up for a Free 30-Day Trial to his Top Charts of the Week service.