The stock market indices finished mixed today. It was a quiet day, although the indices opened lower, snapped back, could not get through yesterday’s late high, and then rolled over hard to retest the lows. They made nominal new lows on the S&P 500, but did not confirm on the Nasdaq 100. They then snapped back sharply, taking the NDX from 2192 up to 2224. The S&P 500 jumped from a low of 1181 and change to 1197. In the afternoon they backed off, retested, and bounced, and were mixed into the close.

Net on the day, the Dow was down 53.13 at 11,494.18, the S&P 500 down 4.92 to 1188.06, and Nasdaq 100 was up 5.19 at 2216.33, with Apple Inc. (AAPL) leading the way, up 7.60 to 376.51 today.

Advance-declines were about 3 to 2 negative on the New York Stock Exchange, and 3 to 2 negative on Nasdaq as well. Up/down volume was almost 3 to 1 negative on New York, with total volume of about 800 million shares traded today. Nasdaq traded 1.75 billion shares and had about a 9 to 8 1/2 negative volume ratio.

TheTechTrader.com was mixed, but there were some gainers as noted earlier. Apple along with several other of the major Nasdaq stocks had good gains today. Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN) was up 3.09 to 192.34, Molycorp, Inc. (MCP) 1.52 to 29.79, and Travelzoo Inc. (TZOO) 1.02 to 26.78.

Focus Media Holding Ltd. (FMCN) advanced 2.27 to 17.70 reaching as high as 18.36 from a low of 8.79 yesterday, and Brocade Communications Systems, Inc. (BRCD) had a good day, up 59 cents to 5.07.

Other gainers of note included Datalink Corp. (DTLK) up 55 cents to 7.85, Hollysys Automation Technologies, Ltd (HOLI) up 44 cents to 9.10, Ebix Inc. (EBIX) 71 cents to 19.11, Mitek Systems Inc. (MITK) 31 cents to 7.98, Colfax Corporation (CFX) 92 cents to 29.33, and Genesco Inc. (GCO) 1.75 to 57.84 on good earnings.

Several pharmaceutical stocks had a strong day today. Gilead Sciences Inc. (GILD) after taking over Pharmasset, Inc. (VRUS) yesterday was up 2.50 to 38.76. Pharmacyclics Inc. (PCYC) gained 63 cents to 13.01, Spectrum Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (SPPI) 38 cents to 13.23, BioMarin Pharmaceutical Inc. (BMRN) 1.23 to 32.43, and junior biotech Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (REGN) 1.73 to 56.73.

Silver stocks were strong, with Endeavour Silver Corp. (EXK) up 65 cents to 10.95, on 2.2 million shares.

Ultra-short Direxion Daily Financial Bear 3X Shares (FAZ), up 1.24 to 50.73, was the only one that was up more than a point in that sector.

On the downside, the point-plus losers included First Solar, Inc. (FSLR) down 2.73 to 40.80, InterDigital, Inc. (IDCC) down 1.68 to 42.88, Goldman Sachs (GS) 1.90 to 89.40, Netflix, Inc. (NFLX) 4.02 to 70.45, and Universal Display Corp. (PANL) 1.48 to 42.68.

In the ultra-short sector VelocityShares Daily 2x VIX ST ETN (TVIX) was down 2.64 to 57.00, the Direxion Daily Small Cap Bull 3X Shares (TNA) down 1.01 to 38.57, iPath S&P 500 VIX Short-Term Futures ETN (VXX) 1.12 to 46.42, and the Direxion Daily Financial Bull 3X Shares (FAS) 1.29 to 53.12.

Stepping back and reviewing the hourly chart patterns, the indices were down early, and back up early, but then back down sharply in the morning, and back up sharply early afternoon. They backed and filled in the afternoon and closed mixed on the day.

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