The indices had an up-day today working off the oversold condition and coming up off of yesterday's consolidation attempt, which turned out to have been a minor base.  But I'd have to say that the action looked more corrective than impulsive and was not impressive.

The day started out with a solid gap-up, but the indices failed to follow-through immediately and pulled back in the morning, held support, and then moved steadily higher through the mid-day session into the early afternoon where they reached their peaks for the day.  Over the last couple hours they meandered back and forth but held support, although were not able to break out above key resistance now at 1425 on the Nasdaq 100 and 1155 on the S&P 500.

Net on the day the Dow was up 52 and change, the S&P 500 about 6, the Nasdaq 100 10.82 and the Composite 14.62.  The SOX was up 6.71, or 1.74 percent.

The technicals were very solid today with advance-declines 25 to 8 positive on New York and 21 1/2 to 9 positive on Nasdaq.  Up/down volume was strong as well by 3 to 1 on New York on a total of a little less than 1.6 billion shares.  Nasdaq traded more than 1 3/4 billion shares, with a ratio of 3 1/2 to 1 positive on volume

TheTechTrader.com board was very active with some  outstanding gainers today.  Dynamic Materials (BOOM) roared back, up more than 5 points on 2.7 million shares, closing near the high for the day.  CryptoLogic (CRYP) sprang back 1.85, Geo Resources (GEOI) 1.08, and Allscripts Healthcare (MDRX) up 1 today.

Other gainers of note, in the low-priced sector Applied Digital (ADSX) was up 43 cents, Altair (ALTI) up 31 cents and Alvarion (ALVR) continued its recent rally, up 64 cents. 

Energy Conversion Devices (ENER) was up 46 cents, Evergreen Solar (ESLR) 21 cents, Forward Industries (FORD) was up 55 cents, along with Chipmos (IMOS) up 65 cents.  Navarre (NAVR) also advanced 59 cents today.

On the downside, nothing to speak of except for WorldGate (WGAT), which backed off 46 cents.  The rest of my board was green today.

Stepping back and reviewing the overall patterns, despite the sharp sell-off of the prior 10 days or so, the snapback over the last 1-1 1/2 days has been somewhat unimpressive.  I would not be surprised to see a retest or even lower lows before this is done, although there is some room to the upside if the aforementioned resistance levels are taken out.

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.