The indices had a solid up-session with confirming technicals, but the afternoon sell-off certainly gave back a chunk of the gains, and made it a disappointing session at best. But an up-day is an up-day.

The day started out with a large gap-up to new rally highs. They pulled back briefly, and then went to secondary highs. At that point the highs for the session were hit. Later on they tested those levels again but couldn’t get through, and finally after a third rally attempt failed they rolled over sharply, bounced at the 4-day trendlines, hit initial overhead resistance and backed off and then came down to those trendlines again, only to bounce in the last couple minutes.

Net on the day, the Dow was up 68 Ã,¼, the S&P up nearly 10, the Nasdaq 100 10.33, and the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index (SOXX) up 8 Ã,¼, almost 2 percent.

Technicals were certainly solid today, with advance-declines positive by 3 to 1 on New York and by 3 to 2 on Nasdaq. Up/down volume was 3 Ã,½ to 1 positive on New York and a little more than 2 to 1 positive on Nasdaq. Total volume on New York was under 1 2/3 billion, and Nasdaq traded over 1.8 billion.

TheTechTrader.com board was mostly narrowly mixed. There were a few outstanding gainers. Retailer Zumiez, Inc. (ZUMZ) jumped 4.36 today on nearly 2 million shares. Home Inns & Hotels (HMIN), the Chinese hotelier, jumped back over 38, up 2.33 on more than 1 million. Those were the two point-plus gainers on my board today.

Other stocks of note, Onyx Pharmaceuticals (ONXX) was up 88 cents. Mamma.com (MAMA) gained 87 cents, although nearly 90 cents off the high, giving back half of its gains in the afternoon, but traded more than 19 million shares today.

Fuel Tech (FTEK) snapped back 55 cents, and Energy Conversion Devices (ENER) 43 cents. Cleveland Bio (CBLI) had an excellent day, up 80 cents. Aluminum Corp. of China (ACH) was up 76 cents, and portfolio position Inspire Pharmaceuticals (ISPH) up 29 cents.

Stepping back and reviewing the hourly chart patterns, the trend continued today, as the top of the channels were hit early in the morning and then the bottom of the channels were tested late in the afternoon.

Net on the day, the indices were up largely because of the large opening gaps, but the rest of the day was rather sloppy.

We’ll see if they can continue to hold trendlines and support and move higher, or whether they break them and do much deeper retesting, which at this point I feel may be the likely direction over the next few days.

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.