It was a choppy session as the markets rebounded back from yesterday's steep losses, and a late afternoon rally brought them up to near their best levels of the day.  The day started out with volatility ,as swings back & forth failed to make new lows after the initial drop. A mid morning rally stalled at mid session & after a pretty sharp, but brief pullback the rally resumed & went steadily to new session highs. Very late in the session, in the last 5-10 minutes, they backed off from the session highs, but closed solid on the day

The Dow was up 82, the S&P 500 nearly 8, and the Nasdaq 100 up a little less than 4.  The SOX Semiconductor Index was up barely today, just 0.41.

The technicals were positive by 22 to 10 on New York and 19 to 10 on Nasdaq.  Up/down volume was 2 1/2 to 1 positive on New York on little less than 1.5 billion. Nasdaq had more than 2 billion traded with about a 4 to 3 positive ratio.

TheTechTrader.com board was narrowly mixed with a couple outstanding issues.  Dynamic Materials Corp. (BOOM) advanced 1.68, and Smith Micro (SMSI), one of our portfolio positions, popped to a new 15-month high, closing up 1.20 on nearly 1 million shares, very heavy volume for that stock.

Endwave (ENWV) was up 99 cents, DXP Enterprises (DXPE) 85 cents, Chindex (CHDX) up 54 cents, Stereotaxis (STXS) up 41 cents, and Services Acquisition Corp (SVI) up 46 cents.

On the downside, Broadcom (BRCM) gave back 85 cents, PW Eagle (PWEI) 50 cents, Rediff.com India (REDF) 24 cents, LMI Aerospace (LMIA) 39 cents, and Eclipsys (ECLP) 23 cents.   Most other stocks were just fractionally changed.

Stepping back and reviewing the hourly chart patterns, the indices snapped back to resistance today, particularly on Nasdaq, making only nominal new highs for the session.

The S&P 500 and Dow were much stronger today, but with Nasdaq trailing it may be an ominous sign of pending negativity.  We'll see how tomorrow goes, which should be a critical session.

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.