The markets meandered back and forth today in a trading range, and on three different occasions tried to break support, but held and the indices remarkably came back strong in the last hour to put the blue chips near the flat line and Nasdaq into the plus column

The day started out with a gap down.  They moved sharply lower, tested support, bounced and retested them in the morning successfully, before starting late morning into early afternoon rally that took the indices back up to test yesterday's high.  They couldn't get through and they pulled back down and nearly retested the lows, made higher lows, rallied back and closed near the afternoon highs and the session highs.

Net on the day, the Dow managed to stay above 11,000 at 11,011.58, down just 0.32, and that was some 62 points above the low.  The S&P 500 was off just 0.46, but about 6 points off the earlier lows.  The Nasdaq 100 closed up 2 at 1744, near the highs for the day and 14 points off the low.  That was helped by the SOX Semiconductor Index up, 3.42, closing very near the highs for the session as well.

The technicals were positive by 18 to 15 on advance-declines on New York and about 17 to 13 on Nasdaq.  Up/down volume was just barely positive on the NYSE by 200,000 shares on total volume of about 1.7 billion. Nasdaq traded about 1.95 billion with about an 11 to 8 1/2 ratio on the up/down volume.

TheTechTrader.com board was nearly all positive, with just a few losers today.  The point-plus gainers were Energy Conversion Devices (ENER), snapping back 1.74 from yesterday's sharp pullback.  Evergreen Solar (ESLR) was up 1.18 and DSTI up 87 cents, all in the alternative energy group.  It was a big day for that group.

Other stocks of note, NUVO followed up on yesterday's gains, up another 1.38 on 3.8 million.  Vertex Pharmaceuticals (VRTX) went to a new multi-year high, closing over 34, up 94 cents today. 

Among our current model portfolio holdings, BioCryst Pharmaceuticals (BCRX) was up 51 cents, Dynamic Materials Corp. (BOOM) up 49 cents, Astea International (ATEA) up 50 cents, and PW Eagle (PWEI) up 37 cents,

On the downside, Rediff.com India (REDF) gave back 65 cents today, and Viisage (VISG) gave back 30 cents.  But other than that most stocks were up on my board.

Stepping back and reviewing the hourly chart patterns, the indices bent again but didn't break and held the rising 21-day moving averages on the 60-minute charts on both indices.  That proved to be important support.

The levels we continue to monitor are 1730 NDX and 1284 S&P.  Those are three-day support levels.  Resistance is at 1745, just beneath where we closed on the NDX, and 1290-91 just beneath where we closed on the S&P.

So likely the indices may try to extend tomorrow morning, but those are the levels to keep an eye on.

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.