We had a fairly volatile day within a narrow range, as the indices moved seven different directions today and closed mixed on the session.

The day started out with a little bump to the upside, more so on the S&P 500, which popped to new multi-year highs today, getting up to just under 1434.  At that point the NDX was trailing and they then came down hard in the morning.  They tested support on the S&P, took it out slightly on the NDX.  Then they had a snapback rally which came back to the highs on the NDX, much shallower on the S&P and they pulled back and successfully retested in early afternoon.  They bounced sharply, but couldn’t make a higher high and then pulled back again, but just before the closing bell in the last 10 minutes or so they bounced to the upside.

That put the Dow and the S&P in plus territory, with the Dow up 26 Ã,½ and the S&P 500 up 1.17.  However, the Nasdaq 100 was down 2.37, mostly because of pressure by the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index (SOXX), which was down 6 on the day.

The technicals were very mixed and very narrow.  There were just 15 more decliners than advancers on the NYSE.  On Nasdaq there 215 more decliners.  Up/down volume was nearly flat on New York, just slightly negative, and 11 to 10 negative on Nasdaq, with a total of 2.15 billion traded on Nasdaq and about 1 Ã,½ billion on New York.

TheTechTrader.com board was active and mixed.  By far the leader today was portfolio position Chindex (CHDX), which popped at the open and then ran all day, up 3.24 on very strong volume of 617,000, which for that stock is large volume. 

Portfolio position Home Inns & Hotels (HMIN), the Chinese hotelier, was up 1.53.  Qiao Xing Universal Telephone (XING), the Chinese telephone company, was up 1.75.  And Telestone Technologies (TSTC), a Chinese telecom, was up 1.10.  So Chinese stocks had a strong session for the most part.

Other Chinese stocks of note, American Oriental Bioengineering (AOB) was up 66 cents, and Aluminum Corp. of China (ACH), a portfolio position of ours, was up 62 cents.

Chinadotcom advanced 65 cents on nearly 8 million shares, and portfolio postion Global Sources (GSOL)  was up 74 cents.  Fuel Tech (FTEK) hit a new all-time high over 28 today, closing up 67 cents on more than half a million today.  Chinese telecom Wireless Ronin (RNIN) was up 82 cents, and portfolio position Simpletech (STEC) up 49 cents.

On the downside, Gmarket (GMKT), the Korean eBay, was down 1.76, and the US Oil Fund (USO) ETF fell 1.23 and was stopped out of our portfolio earlier in the session.

Other than that on the downside, there were just fractional losses.  Among them, China GrenTech (GRRF) fell 30 cents, Fuwei Films (FFHL) 26 cents, Lumera (LMRA) 27 cents, and Sigma Designs (SIGM) 31 cents.

Stepping back and reviewing the hourly chart patterns, today appeared to be a consolidation session as the indices did not make much headway but managed to hold support on two tests intraday.  On the upside, new highs were made on both the S&P and NDX, and that augurs well for future price progress. 

Despite the fact there are many divergences and technical concerns, the market continues to march higher.

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.