It was a down day for the blue chips, though the Nasdaq was flat. But it was a fairly volatile day.

The day started with an attempt to move higher. The S&P did not participate. Then they had a sharp sell-off, taking them to new 2005 lows on the S&P at 1179 and the NDX down at around 1471. At that point they had a very sharp rally right to the lunch hour, hitting the peak for the day on the NDX. Then they had an orderly pullback over the next couple hours, which in mid-afternoon held at 1480 NDX support and 1182 S&P support, and then they firmed back up to retest the highs, but failed to take out 1490 on the NDX and fell far short on the S&P. Then they backed off into the close.

Net on the day the Dow was down 64 1/4, the S&P was down a little less than 6 points, the Nasdaq 100 up a nickel and the Composite down 1/4. The SOX was off 3/4. So, it was a very narrow day for the Nasdaq, but the chips still suffered.

Technically, advance-declines were quite negative by 23 to 10 on New York and about 3 to 2 negative on Nasdaq. But up/down volume on Nasdaq was 3 to 2 positive, with less than 1.6 billion traded. New York had volume of about 1.4 billion.

TheTechTrader.com was mixed but mostly higher, led by an astounding performance by BOOM, which exploded up 6 1/2 points on 5 million shares to a new all-time high. USEG, one of the junior energy stocks, continued its winning ways, up 1.21.

But others in that group didn't fare as well, with ABLE down 15 cents after being up about 1.30 at one point. That looks like a potential reversal day there.

In the alternative energy sector, ENER was up 47 cents, FCEL 12 cents, but ESLR backed off 14 cents. Other stocks of note, MFLX was up 42 cents, PACT up 54 cents, and uranium stock USU was up 21 cents, although that one was about 80 cents higher during the earlier part of the session.

Stepping back and reviewing the overall patterns, the indices bent today but didn't break, although they did set new lows. The rally back in the afternoon was promising, but so far hasn't taken out any resistance levels, particularly in the blue chips. So tomorrow is going to be a key day. The indices remain somewhat oversold and I'm expecting higher prices later in the week.

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.