The indices ended mixed today with the NDX down and the rest of the indices up.  But it was a very sloppy session.

The day started out with an attempt at a rally, which failed quickly and they then moved down to new pullback lows on the NDX but not so on the S&P 500.  For the next several hours they drifted and meandered pretty much sideways. 

In the afternoon when no rally materialized, they rolled over and hit additional new pullback lows on the NDX at the 1651 level.  The S&P made just slightly lower lows for the session but did not take out last week's lows.  That caused a slow, tedious pullback rally over the last couple hours that pulled the indices back into the plus column for the most part.  However, the Nasdaq 100 remained down on the day despite the fact that the SOX had a big day today.

Net on the day, the Dow was up less than 5 points, the S&P 500 up about 1 point.  The NDX was down 7, while the SOX was up more than 2 percent, up 11.37 today.  The NDX was probably down for the most part due to stocks like Apple Computer (AAPL), down 4.55 today, one of our Boxer Shorts.

The technicals were much more positive on New York than on Nasdaq.  New York advance-declines were 3 to 2 positive, while Nasdaq was barely positive by 100 issues.  Up/down volume was 3 to 2 positive on New York on lower volume of just 1 1/2 billion traded.  Nasdaq traded about 1.8 billion, with barely 9 to 8 positive on advancing/declining volume. 

TheTechTrader.com board was mixed with some outstanding issues to the upside, particularly the Indian Internet portals.  Rediff.com India (REDF) exploded and ran hard late in the day, and closed up 5.13 on 3 1/4 million. Sify Ltd. (SIFY) advanced 2.55 on more than 7 million shares.

Other stocks of note, Broadcom (BRCM) rose to 70.22, up 2.64, and Fuel Tech (FTEK) was up 97 cents following up on Friday's gains. Evergreen Solar (ESLR) advanced 51 cents in the alternative energy sector, but the group was mixed with DayStar Technologies (DSTI) down 43 cents and Energy Conversion Devices (ENER) down 24 cents.

Dynamic Materials Corp. (BOOM) gave back 1.14, and the rest of the stocks on our board were pretty fractionally changed up or down.

Stepping back and reviewing the hourly chart patterns, we had declining tops and bottoms all day today, failing to break out above any resistance levels.  Despite the fact that there were some gains today, the picture was very mixed today and still inconclusive.

The positive part about today was that S&P support at 1260-61 held all session, despite the lower lows of the Nasdaq 100.

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.