The indices ended mixed, but the day started out with a back-and-forth action that lasted most of the morning and tested the previous highs on the S&P, slightly taking them out on the NDX.  They pulled back at the beginning of the lunch hour, but at that point started a rally that took us up to the end of the lunch hour when the market accelerated to new rally highs. That took the NDX through key overhead resistance at around the 1550 level, reaching as high as 1560. The S&P acted similarly, broke out across 1220 resistance in the early afternoon and rallied to as high as 1225 and change before a late pullback backed both indices into the close, taking the Dow into negative territory.

The Dow was down about 6 today.  The S&P was up 2 3/4, the Nasdaq 100 up a little less than 8, and the SOX Index up about 1 percent, or 4 1/2 points.

The technicals were positive but narrower by only 18 to 14 on New York and only by 97 issues on Nasdaq.  Up/down volume was stronger by 5 to 3 on Nasdaq and 8 to 5 on New York.  Total volume was a little over 1.4 billion on New York and about 1.6 billion on Nasdaq.

TheTechTrader.com board had some wild swings today.  The biggest swing was by Dynamic Materials (BOOM), which at one point was up about 3 points and reached a new all-time high just under 47, before plunging late in the session to under 41, closing at 40.64, down 3.36 on 6 1/2 million shares.

Other losers of note, CryptoLogic (CRYP) was down 1.66 after breaking support.  World Poker Tour (WPTE), which announced that the bid for the company was expiring, was down 1.22.

DayStar Technologies (DSTI) backed off a couple points from its earlier high and closed down 98 cents on the day, a full reversal there on just under 3 million shares.  That's heavy volume for that stock.

On the plus side, however, there were some outstanding gainers.  In the junior energy sector Able Energy (ABLE) was up 1.56 and Georesources (GEOI) 1.49.

Amylin Pharmaceuticals (AMLN) to a new rally high was up 73 cents, and Kendle International (KNDL) closing at 16 was up 86 cents.

In the large-cap sector, Juniper Networks (JNPR) was up 50 cents and QLogic (QLGC) 36 cents, but for the most part most large-cap stocks I follow were narrowly changed again.

Stepping back and reviewing the hourly chart patterns, the 4-day rally continued today with a vengeance in the afternoon and took the indices to new rally highs.   We're now up 75 points in four sessions on the NDX with no substantial pullback, so to say the least we're overbought short term & way overdue for a pullback, but momentum is still carrying this market forward and not letting the shorts out very easily.

The NDX is now approaching its May highs up in that 1568 area.  We're not far from there and we'll see if we can approach that tomorrow.

The S&P 500 is just a few points away from testing the March 2005 highs in the 1229-30 zone.

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.