Today was a very strange day. The market had three distinct parts of the session:  an early drop, strong mid-day rally, and then a late drop that basically brought them back to flat on the session.

The day started out with a gap down.  The indices came down hard particularly on the Nasdaq 100 and tested yesterdayââ,¬â"¢s double-bottom near 1475.  At that point the S&P made a higher low, and that triggered a morning rally which consolidated during lunch hour and then extended in the afternoon and reached a key resistance point around 1499 on the Nasdaq 100, which was the rally high reached on the 19th.  The S&P made nominal new highs, but still has not gotten back through the highs reached in the first week of July up around 1280.  In the last hour the indices backed off in a three-step decline that brought them back into slightly negative territory.

Net on the day the Dow was down only 1.20, the S&P 500 down 0.48, and the Nasdaq 100 down 1.64, with the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index (SOXX) down 0.36.  However, the SOXX was a full 9 points off the low, so that came back quite a bit on the session and actually was up 4 points at one point before giving it back at the end of the day.

The technicals reflected the mixed picture, particularly on Nasdaq where advance-declines were actually 16 to 13 negative.  New York was about 18 to 15 positive.  Up/down volume on Nasdaq was almost exactly flat with about a billion shares traded up and down and 2 billion total.  There was a 9 to 8 positive ratio on advancing volume over declining volume on New York, but certainly a mixed picture reflecting the narrow close on the indices.

TheTechTrader.com board was active but mostly narrowly mixed.  Baidu.com (BIDU), which dropped sharply in the morning and got down under 86, closed near 92, up 2.20 on the day on more than 4 million shares and released earnings after the close.  Apple Computer (AAPL) was probably the star of the day in addition to BIDU.  That was strong for most of the session, got over 64 Ã,½ and closed at 63.87, up 1.94 on 31 Ã,½ million shares.

Other stocks of note, Charts of the Week portfolio position Omni Energy (OMNI) was up 90 cents on 1.2 million, and PW Eagle (PWEI) advanced 59 cents. 

In the large-cap sector, Qualcomm (QCOM) was up 70 cents, and the GLD gold tracking ETF was up 44 cents today.

On the downside, Broadcom (BRCM) lost 98 cents, hitting a new 52-week low.  Evergreen Solar (ESLR) got hammered & was  down 1.36 on 6 million.  Pacific Ethanol (PEIX) was down another 90 cents, Momenta Pharmaceuticals (MNTA) down 95 cents, Smith Micro (SMSI)  72 cents, Zevex (ZVXI) 48 cents, and Fuel Tech (FTEK) down 76 cents today.

Stepping back and reviewing the hourly chart patterns, the indices managed to break through yesterdayââ,¬â"¢s highs but failed around last weekââ,¬â"¢s highs on the Nasdaq 100, and the high of two weeks ago on the S&P 500, and with the technicals as narrow and negative as they were, it was a certainly a rather unimpressive rally today, and I wasnââ,¬â"¢t surprised to see the pullback late in the day.

But the keyââ,¬â"¢s going to be what the reaction is in terms of a follow-up over the next day or two.  So weââ,¬â"¢ll be keeping a close eye on support at 1475 NDX and the 1255-57 level on the S&P. Resistance at NDX 1500 & SPX 1278-80

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.