The indices gapped up in the morning, came down sharply, held support, rallied just as sharply and failed at resistance, and then came down hard mid-day.  They took out initial support, taking out yesterdayââ,¬â"¢s lows on the S&P 500, but that was not confirmed on the NDX.  The market stabilized in the early afternoon, and then rallied into the last hour before a last 15-minute pullback brought them off the rally highs.

Net on the day, the indices ended mixed, with the Dow down 5 Ã,¾, but the Nasdaq 100 was up 4 Ã,¾.  The S&P 500 was up a penny, pretty much unchanged, and the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index (SOXX) up just 0.74.

The technicals were flat, positive by 70 issues on New York and negative by 215 issues on Nasdaq.  Up/down volume was 9 to 8 negative on New York and 10 to 8 positive on Nasdaq.  Total volume was more than 1.7 billion on New York and more than 1.9 billion on Nasdaq.

TheTechTrader.com board  was mixed, mostly narrowly mixed, but the leader today was recent trading favorite LMRA, which jumped at the opening and rallied all day.  It closed up 2.39 on 17 Ã,½ million shares, a gain today of 39%.  RNAI, as noted last evening, was acquired by MRK at $13 today, and closed up 6.20 on nearly 15 million shares, a gain of 96%.

Other than that, Amex-listed American Oriental Bioengineering (AOB) rallied up near its all-time high today, up 43 cents on 2 Ã,¼ million.

Other stocks of note, Pacific Ethanol (PEIX) advanced 53 cents, PW Eagle (PWEI) 48 cents, Sigma Designs (SIGM) closed up 58 cents to 21 on nearly 1 million shares, and FLML was up 43 cents today.

On the downside, Align Technology (ALGN) was down 67 cents, but U.S. Global Investors (GROW) was the loss leader, down 1.23.  OSIS was down 62 cents and most other stocks were either fractionally up or down today.

Stepping back and reviewing the hourly chart patterns, despite the fact that the S&P 500 broke its 4-week rising bottoms line and trendline, it held lateral price support near 1372 and rallied back up near resistance at the close, before backing away.

The Nasdaq 100, however, has not broken down yet and has held its trendlines and moving average support today before rallying in the afternoon.

So, itââ,¬â"¢s a mixed picture, but the indices continue to bend but have not broken.  Unless this thing starts to accelerate downward very soon we may get an upside surprise and a rally of the indices even further.

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.