We had two distinct parts of the session.  The indices were down pretty sharply in the morning and up pretty sharply in the afternoon, and net on the day they ended up to the plus side. 

It was an impressive rally price-wise but not necessarily technically, as the underlying technical were just marginally to the plus side at the close, but that occasionally happens when they come back from deeper earlier losses.

Net on the day the Dow was up just 19 to 10,300, but only 11 points off the high, and some 116 points off the low.  The S&P 500 was up 4.89 and about 14 points off the low.  The Nasdaq 100 was up more than 9 points to just under 1460, nearly 30 points off the low.  The Composite was 28 points off the low, up nearly 9 as well, and the SOX Index was up a little less than 1 1/2 points, about 6 points off the low for the session.

The technicals were mixed at the close.  Advance-declines were positive by 113 issues on New York and negative by about 14 issues on Nasdaq, so nearly flat on advance-declines.

Up/down volume did manage to edge into the plus side by about 5 to 4 on New York.  Volume was light, with just over 1 billion shares traded on New York and 1 1/3 billion on Nasdaq, with about an 8 to 5 positive plurality there on advancing/declining volume.

TheTechTrader.com board was mostly narrowly mixed, but  there were a few outstanding stocks both up & down.

NovAtel (NGPS) was up 1.17, Parlux Fragrances (PARL) was up 70 cents, Arena Pharmaceuticals 52 cents, and Vasco Data Security (VDSI), challenging its 4-year highs, was up 56 cents. Juniper Networks (JNPR) advanced 44 cents.

On the downside, JAMDAT Mobile (JMDT) gave back another 1.30 today from recent gains.  That was the only stock down more than a point.  Medicore (MDKI) was down 65 cents.

Stepping back and reviewing the overall patterns, we had a break of short-term support that was quickly recovered in the afternoon, and the indices closed back up, particularly on the Nasdaq 100, closed near the highs for the last couple weeks.

We're again retesting price resistance on the Nasdaq 100 and declining tops resistance on the S&P 500, and we'll see if we can follow through tomorrow and take out those levels and continue to rally.

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.