The market ended the session pretty close to the flat line, but the session did have some early volatility. 

The indices gapped up at the opening, ran to yesterday afternoon's rally highs on the Nasdaq 100, but fell short on the S&P 500.  Then they have a very sharp sell-off that saw the NDX drop nearly 20 points in less than half an hour.  The S&P in the same period of time dropped about 7 points, then had a very sharp snapback that lasted right up to lunch hour.  After that the indices pretty much meandered sideways for most of the day in a narrow range.  They dipped toward the last hour, but then snapped back in the last 30 minutes.

Net on the day the Dow was down 1.84, the S&P 500 down 1.80, the Nasdaq 100 up 2.7, and the SOX down 2.4.

So it was a narrowly mixed today.  But the technicals were decidedly negative on New York by 21 to 12 on advance-declines and 3 to 2 on up/down volume, with total volume of just under 1.6 billion traded.  Nasdaq traded 1 ¾ billion with a narrow 9 to 8 positive margin on up/down volume, but advance-declines were about 3 to 2 negative.

TheTechTrader.com board was very narrowly mixed, with no stocks up or down as much as a point.  The leaders today were FCEL up 83 cents, BOOM up 68 cents, NMGC snapping back 50 cents, VRTX 35 cents, and REDF 34 cents.

On the downside, loss leaders were NWRE off 83 cents, ESLR 43 cents, and most other stocks just very narrowly fractionally changed both up and down.

Stepping back and reviewing the hourly chart patterns, the indices as indicated earlier failed to take out yesterday's highs and had a very sharp reaction which nominally took out short-term support on the NDX but held them on the S&P, which resulted in the afternoon snapback.

But with the underlying technicals as unimpressive as they were and the action fairly lethargic-looking, the jury is still out as to the short-term direction.  We'll have to see to which way they break.

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.