We had another extremely volatile today.  The markets had three major moves intraday.  The day started out with a sharp move off the opening.  The NDX rallied 25 points inside of the first 45 minutes.  The S&P 500 in the same period of time rallied about 12 points, and hit the intraday moving averages and declining topslines and faded fast, selling off sharply and taking out the early morning lows and hitting new two-week decline lows at 1555 NDX and 1245 S&P.  At that point they rallied in a five-wave move, taking the NDX sharply higher by about 30 points.  The S&P rallied about 16 points.  Only a slight pullback in the last 10 minutes took them off the rally highs.

At the end of the day they closed on the positive side, with the Dow up 19, the S&P 500 up 2, and the Nasdaq 100 up 11 and change.  The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index (SOXX), which was all over the place today, managed to close 9 points off the low, up 3.46 on the day.

The technicals, as usually happens afger sharp reversals, did not quite get back into the positive column, although up/down volume on Nasdaq did.  Advance-declines were 3 to 2 negative on New York and 8 to 7 negative on Nasdaq.  Up/down volume was 3 to 2 negative as well on New York with nearly 2 1/4 billion traded there.  Nasdaq had huge volume of just under 2.7 billion, and had about a 3 to 2 positive ratio.

TheTechTrader.com board was extremely mixed with point-plus gainers and losers.  On the plus side, Baidu.com (BIDU) rallied 5 points from its session low, closing up 1.57 on the day, near 84.  Amazon (AMZN) was up 1.43 today.  BioCryst Pharmaceuticals (BCRX) in the avian flu sector, which was strong, gained 1.15, and Novavax (NVAX) gained 30 cents on nearly 16 million shares.

Other gains of note, Dynamic Materials Corp. (BOOM) advanced 98 cents, and Pacific Ethanol (PEIX) 34 cents.

On the downside, DXP Enterprises (DXPE) gave back 1.90, 51job, Inc. (JOBS) 1.29, LMI Aerospace (LMIA) 1.22, MGP Ingredients (MGPI) 1.11 cents, Rediff.com India (REDF) 81 cents, and Energy Conversion Devices (ENER) 84 cents.

Stepping back and reviewing the hourly chart patterns, the possibility of a short-term low was put in today.  If we get a follow-through tomorrow, we'll know whether, in fact, that is the case.  Resistance is at the intraday rally highs around the 1585-90 zone and above that the 1600-05 zone on the NDX, which is what we'll be keeping an eye on tomorrow.

On the S&P 500 those levels are 1264-65 and then 1272-74.

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.