The markets had a mixed session to start the week, but it looked a lot uglier than that during the trading session.

They started out mixed, moved lower and then had a morning rally that took the NDX to its highs for the day. The S&P 500, however, rallied to higher highs later in the morning and retested Friday afternoon's rally high as well but failed right there. When the NDX failed to confirm the new SPX high, they rolled over and sold off steadily in the afternoon.  With an hour to go they bounced back and came off the lows for the day.

Net on the day, the Dow was up 21, the S&P 500 up 1, and the Nasdaq 100 down 4.  The SOX Semiconductor Index was also down 4.

The technicals were negative by a little better than 3 to 2 on New York, and a similar amount on Nasdaq.  Up/down volume was decidedly negative on both exchanges, but only by about 7 to 6 on New York on a total of about 1.3 billion traded. Nasdaq traded about 1.85 billion with a 2 to 1 negative ratio.

TheTechTrader.com board was quite active and very mixed, with some strong gainers and losers.  On the plus side, Inter-Tel(INTL) gapped up and ran today up 3.13 on 1.3 million.  Pacific Ethanol (PEIX) was up another 3 points on more than 5 1/3 million.  VIMC was up 2.83 on nearly 1 million shares traded.  OLAB following up on Friday's strong gain was up another 2.15 on more than 2 million shares. 

Other gainers of note, Services Acquisition Corp. (SVI) was up 92 cents to a new all-time high.  Stereotaxis (STXS) snapped back 50 cents, as did Nitches (NICH) .   Fuel Tech (FTEK) gained 53 cents, hitting a new all-time, and BioCryst Pharmaceuticals (BCRX) up 64 cents.

On the downside, the loss leader was Neoware Systems (NWRE) which got hammered for 3.35.  Optelecom-NKF (OPTC) was down 1.95, Energy Conversion Devices (ENER) gave back another 1.02, and Broadcom (BRCM) lost 98 cents.

Stepping back and reviewing the hourly chart patterns, the NDX, in particular, broke down through key short-terms support at 1720 and rallied back to it at the end of the day, but also broke its 40-day moving average on the hourly charts, and for all intents and purposes has broken the recent uptrend.

The S&P 500 severely tested today at its lows around 1293 the lows of the last three weeks, but has not broken it, and until it breaks down and confirms the NDX we're in a mixed mode.  But that was not a very impressive way to start the week.

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.