The markets had a relatively narrow day today, with most of the day spent in a consolidating-type back-and-forth action.  Only a late surge back up, particularly on the Nasdaq 100, put them back in the plus column.

The day started out with a move down on lower pre market futures that quickly reversed, tested resistance and backed off, then made nominal new lows, which turned out to be the lows for the day at mid-morning.  They then rallied through lunch hour back up to resistance, failed, backed off one more time, and then came back up for a third time.  At that point the S&P 500 took out the highs, but the Nasdaq 100 only made a nominal new high before a last-hour pullback retested intraday trendlines successfully, resulting in a late snapback again.

Net on the day the Dow was only off 7 and change and the S&P 500 up 1.6.  The Nasdaq 100 was up 4 1/4 and the SOX Index up 0.07, very narrow today.

But the technicals were pretty solid for a narrow day with a 3 to 2 advantage on advance-declines on both New York and Nasdaq.  Up/down volume likewise was 3 to 2 positive on both exchanges.  Nasdaq traded more than 1.5 billion, and New York less than 1.4 billion.

TheTechTrader.com board was narrowly mixed.  There were several point-plus gainers and no point-plus losers.  On the plus side, Energy Conversion Devices (ENER) advanced 1.47, following up on recent gains.  Stereotaxis (STXS) reversed sharply off earlier losses and rallied more than 2 points, closing up 1.22 on 2.6 million, one of our model portfolio stocks.   Pacific Ethanol (PEIX) advanced 1.15 on strong volume, and BioCryst Pharmaceuticals (BCRX) was up 1.10.

Other stocks of note on the plus side, PW Eagle (PWEI), a portfolio holding, was up 73 cents today, and Bentley Pharmaceuticals (BNT) advanced 61 cents.

Other stocks of note, AVI Biopharma (AVII) was up 34 cents, Convera (CNVR) was up 42 cents.  Distributed Energy Systems (DESC) in the alternative energy group, was up 67 cnets, and Evergreen Solar (ESLR) up 33 cents.  TradeStation (TRAD) also advanced 33 cents today.

Among the losers were mostly just fractional losses.  Rediff.com India (REDF) lost 43 cents, OpenWave (OPWV) 42 cents, and CHDX down 37 cents.

But other than that there were very fractional gains today and more of a consolidative-type day.  Support did hold for most of the session, except for a minor nominal break in the morning, and we'll see if this supports an extension of the rally early next 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.