The markets had an up-day but barely so on most of the indices, and most of the gains were early in the day.  The day started out with some firmness at the opening.   They pulled back and the moved to the highs for the session within a half hour.  The rest of the day was spent meandering sideways in narrow ranges in what looked like the onset of pre-holiday trading, and volume accordingly was fairly low as well.

Net on the day, the Dow was up 40, the S&P 1 1/2, and the NDX up just 0.35.  The SOX Semiconductor Index was up 3.10.

The technicals were positive but just barely, with advance-declines ahead by less than 80 issues on New York and less than 400 issues on Nasdaq.  Up/down volume was about 4 to 3 positive on New York and a similar amount on Nasdaq.  Total volume was about 1 1/3 billion on New York and about 1 1/2 billion on Nasdaq.

TheTechTrader.com board was mostly higher across the board.  One outstanding stock today was Ceradyne (CRDN), which gapped and ran, up 4.69 today on 4.4 million shares on upward guidance on earnings.  We traded that several times this morning.

The other star of the day was Energy Conversion Devices (ENER), one of our portfolio holdings, up 1.90 on nearly 1 million today and not far off the day's high. 

The other point-plus gainer today was Xyratex (XRTX), up 1.23.  Dynamic Materials Corp. (BOOM) was up 85 cents, Optelecom-NKF (OPTC) up 73 cents, Vimicro International (VIMC) up 58 cents, Sierra Wireless (SWIR) up 55 cents, and Sify Ltd. (SIFY) 44 cents.

Novavax (NVAX) snapped back 65 cents on more than 9 million today, and LMI Aerospace (LMIA) was up 45 cents.  Chindex (CHDX), one of our charts of the quarter, was up 56 cents. 

On the downside, DXP Enterprises (DXPE) gave it back today, extending yesterday's losses, down 1.55.  Pacific Ethanol (PEIX) continued profit-taking and lost another 2.18 today on nearly 5 million shares.

Stepping back and reviewing the hourly chart patterns, today was a consolidation day after some early gains.   Although the potential is there for a building of a tiny base, if resistance at around 1710-11 on the NDX and 1291 or so on the S&P is not taken out and they roll over, we have more to go on the downside. 

Right now the trend is still down, although the declining tops lines of the last 4-5 days were tested late in the session.  Tomorrow is an important session as to determining whether they can reverse this or whether they continue the downtrend.

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.