The indices for the most part had an up day, but at the end of the session the afternoon sell-off put the Dow back near the flatline.

The day started out with a very strong rally from the get-go, especially on Nasdaq, which was playing catch-up today from last week's trailing action.

After the morning's sharp rally the NDX backed and filled but in a rising flag formation. The indices hit their session highs right at mid-lunch hour, and then started a corrective looking slow downward drift which lasted for the rest of the session.

Net on the day the Dow was down around 3 and the S&P was up 3. The Nasdaq, however, was the story of the day. With the SOX up 2%, or more than 8 points, the Nasdaq 100 was up 24 1/2 and the Composite 19 1/2.

So, a strong day on Nasdaq. But despite all of that, advance-declines were down on Nasdaq. It was very unusual action there considering the up/down volume was 14 to 4 positive. On New York advance-declines were 17 to 15 positive and about 4 to 3 positive on advance-decline. About 1.45 billion was traded on New York and about 1.88 billion on Nasdaq.

TheTechTrader.com board was mixed, but there plenty of gainers. Highlights included BOOM, which was up more than 4 points to nearly 25, closing at the high for the day on 4.4 million, a tremendous day there.

GEOI was up 1.56, following up on last week's big move. MFLX was up 1.25 at 22.06 and broke out across a 4-day resistance level.

Other stocks of note, ENER was up 46 cents, HLIT up 22 cents, and PRFT 38 cents. WIND, one of this week's Charts of the Week, up 46 cents today, closing at 16.05.

On the downside, DCAI gave back a chunk, 4 points from the session high , down 1.34 on the day. That was a big reversal. APLX was off 74 cents, getting hit mid-day. AIRT was down 54 cents, NAVR 32 cents, SLNK 43 cents, TZIX 28 and SIGM 26 cents.

Stepping back and reviewing the overall patterns, the market moved to new 2005 highs on the SPX and Dow. The Dow fell about 15 points short of the 11,000 mark and reversed and closed down on the session, as I said before.

The afternoon pullback was rather orderly and could be indicating this rally is not finished yet.

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.