Despite a morning sell-off, which reached new pullback lows, the indices finally decided it was time to snap back, and did so in a three-wave rally.  But with an hour to go they pulled them back again and net on the day ended mixed.

The day started out with a slight gap down that tested yesterday's double-bottom.  They rallied to resistance, failed, and sold off in a five-wave decline which took out the lows just before lunch hour.  At that point they reversed, got up to secondary resistance, backed off in a very orderly fashion, and then rallied strongly mid-afternoon before the late pullback took them back.

Net on the day Dow did manage to close above 11,000 at 11,005, up 25 on the day, and that was about 83 points off the session lows.  So a nice reversal there.  The S&P reversed by 10 points and closed up 2 1/2.  The Nasdaq 100 reversed by 14 points, but still ended down 0.67 on the session. That was because the SOX was down 2.82, but that was some 6 points off the lows.

The technicals were still to the negative side at the end of the day for the most part.  Advance-declines were only about 100 issues lower on New York and about 150 issues lower on Nasdaq.  Up/down volume was slightly positive on New York and slightly negative on Nasdaq.  Total volume was about 2.1 billion on Nasdaq, and just short of 1 3/4 billion on New York.  So above average volume today.

TheTechTrader.com board was fractionally mixed for the most part, except for a stock we traded several times today, Martek Biosciences (MATK), up 3.69 on 4.8 million shares, on a terrific earnings report and upgrades by three different firms.

Other than that, very little to speak of.  Broadcom (BRCM) advanced 87 cents and Universal Display (PANL) 50 cents.

On the downside, Pacific Ethanol (PEIX) gave back 1.04, TradeStation (TRAD) 70 cents, Energy Conversion Devices (ENER) 61 cents and (BOOM) gave back 93 cents today.

Stepping back and reviewing the hourly chart patterns, the indices being extremely oversold going into today then experienced a five-wave decline that reversed mid-day and may have put in a short-term bottom.  The pullback came right back to initial support.  So we'll see if that holds tomorrow and the markets can resume the afternoon rally or whether this is just a technical snapback and they go lower.  This is a key point for the market.

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.