The indices had a slightly down day on Monday, but mostly marked time. Except for an afternoon selloff, the indices pretty much meandered in a range. The day started off with a move down, then the indices snapped back before slipping to a lower low, but a mid-day, mini-five way rally then occurred that failed at resistance. The indices then sold off and made the lows for the day, before bouncing back in the last hour or so.

Net on the day, the Dow was down 21, the S&P 500 3.5, and the Nasdaq 100 around 9 3/4. The SOX Index was down 2.5.

Technicals were decidedly negative today. Advance/declines were 5 to 3 negative on New York and about- nearly 2 to 1 negative on Nasdaq. Up/down volume was 8 to 5 negative on the New York Stock Exchange, and about 3 to 1 negative on the Nasdaq.

TheTechTrader.com board was mostly narrowly mixed, for the most part, except for a couple outstanding issues. The downside leader, to say the least, was Hanson Natural (HANS), which released earnings today and got slam-dunked for $10.40, a loss of more than 25%, on 45 million shares today. Apple Computer (AAPL), after reaching near $70 today, closed at $67.21, down $1.09. And that was it for point-plus losers.

On the plus side, only point-plus gainer was Garmin (GRMN) up $1.66.

Other stocks of note on the upside were Fuel Tech, (FTEK) up $0.81, Energy Conversion Devices (ENER) up $0.42, and Broadcom (BRCM) up $0.34. Low-priced oil, energy stock Blue Dolphin (BDCO) was up $0.41 as well.

On the down side, Baidu.com (BIDU) gave back $0.72, Leading Brands (LBIX) got hammered for $0.97. Qualcomm (QCOM) lost $0.71 and Veritex (VRTX) $0.60.

Stepping back and reviewing the hourly chart patterns, well the indices pretty much meandered lower and it was a pre-Fed announcement day, which was, as we expected, a narrow day today. Tomorrow, the market may be quiet in the morning until the Fed makes known what its intentions are, around 2:00, so we'll see how it goes tomorrow.

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.