The indices staged a late rally which put them back solidly in the plus column, but it was an indecisive session for most of the day.

The day started out with a little pop, which took them to the morning highs pretty quickly.  They backed and filled into a very narrow coil pattern around lunch hour, and then rolled over and took that out, retested the lows on the NDX successfully but made lower lows on the S&P.  They had a sharp rally which failed, had a full retest of the lows that was successful, and then at the end of the day they came on strong in the last hour.

Net on the day the Dow was up nearly 111, the S&P 500 6.35, the Nasdaq 100 13.41, and the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index (SOXX) up nearly 6 points.

However, despite all of that, the technicals were very mixed, narrow to the upside on advance-declines but solidly higher on up/down volume.  Advance-declines were positive by 160 issues on New York and a like amount on Nasdaq.  But up/down volume was 2 to 1 positive on New York with more than 1.9 billion traded.  Nasdaq traded nearly 2.1 billion with a better than 2 to 1 positive ratio.

TheTechTrader.com board was mixed.  There were some strong issues on the plus side, with Baidu.com (BIDU) up 1.20, DXP Enterprises (DXPE) snapping back 1.53, Pacific Ethanol (PEIX) 1.61. Qualcomm (QCOM) 1.41, and MED snapping back 1.07 today.

Other stocks of note, Dynamic Materials Corp. (BOOM) gained 72 cents, BioCryst Pharmaceuticals (BCRX) 71 cents, and  Broadcom (BRCM) 86 cents.

On the downside, Apple Computer (AAPL) lost 72 cents, Fuel Tech (FTEK) 64 cents, Energy Conversion Devices (ENER) 98 cents, and SIMC 40 cents.

Stepping back and reviewing the hourly chart patterns, despite the late rally and the plus day today, the indices still have not taken out key resistance, and remain below declining trendlines and declining moving averages on the hourly charts.

Until we get a reversal of both those plus a surge in volume and more impressive technicals, the trend remains lower until we take out some key overhead resistance.

Iââ,¬â"¢ll be looking at 1535-37 zone on the NDX for starters and the 1234-35 zone on the S&P.  Beyond that weââ,¬â"¢re looking at 1240-42.

Downside support is at the 1512-13 area on the NDX and the 1219-20 zone on the S&P.

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.