The markets had a nice snapback session from an oversold condition.  After three days of declines, the futures were higher before the opening and the indices opened strongly, had a solid morning rally, and then meandered back and forth in a consolidative manner, holding the intraday trendlines and moving averages.  Right as lunch hour ended the indices started rallying again, and had a nice two-step rally with a bullish flag in between in the afternoon session that took them to the highs for the day with about a half hour to go.  Then they eased into the close with a last 5-minute pullback, clipping off the best gains of the day.

Still, net on the day the Dow was up 115, the S&P was up nearly 11, the Nasdaq 100 nearly 15, and the SOX Index up a little less than 4.

The techicals were solid today, with advance-declines 22 1/2 to 10 on New York and 22 to 8 1/2 on Nasdaq.  Up/down volume was the story, however, today by a wide margin, nearly 4 to 1 positive on Nasdaq with about 1.6 billion traded.  New York was about 3 1/2 to 1 positive, with 1 1/3 billion traded there.

TheTechTrader.com board was mostly mixed to positive, with only a few stocks up more than a point.  Dynamic Materials (BOOM) late in the session ran on rumors of a contract.  It was up about 2 1/4 on 1.6 million shares, breaking out above $40 resistance, closing at $40.78.  JAMDAT Mobile (JMDT) advanced 1.20, a strong session.

Vertex Pharmaceuticals (VRTX) was up 55 cents, Medicore (MDKI) 35 cents, CryptoLogic (CRYP) up 50 cents, and Amylin Pharmaceuticals (AMLN) up 93 cents on more than 3 million shares to a new rally high.

Air T (AIRT) also snapped back 43 cents.

In the large-cap sector, QLogic (QLGC) was up 83 cents, Broadcom (BRCM) 59 cents, Intel (INTC) 47 cents, the SMH up 45 cents, and the QQQQ up 35 cents today.

Stepping back and reviewing the overall patterns, the indices managed, as I indicated earlier, to snapback but have little damage, as they closed right around initial overhead resistance and not far from the declining 40-day moving average on the hourly charts.

I do expect some kind of pullback/retest as early as tomorrow, but we'll see if the downtrend is still in force or if there's any kind of significant reversal.

So far today's thrust was a good one but not overly impressive.

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.