The markets generally had an up-day, but the Nasdaq was held back by the SOX and was barely ahead today despite the blue chips having a better session. So today was clearly positive, but much more so on New York than Nasdaq.

The day started out with a gap-up on Nasdaq and the S&P, which moved up to test resistance. They then came down sharply. The S&P held its morning lows, but the Nasdaq went to below yesterday afternoon's lows.
They bounced, double-bottomed and then had a sharp rally just before the lunch hour. During the lunch hour and into mid-afternoon the markets pulled all the way back down and retested the lows on the Nasdaq for a third and fourth time before bouncing late in the session.

After four successful tests of the 1490 level on the Nasdaq 100 they had a very nice afternoon rally which took them right back up towards the highs. But when they couldn't get through there they rolled back down towards the close and closed off the highs for the day.
Net on the session the Dow was up 62 1/2 and the S&P up 6 2/3. The Nasdaq 100 managed to gain 3, the Composite less than 1 point, and the SOX was down 1 3/4.

Technicals were positive on New York by 20 to 12 and by more than 2 to 1 on advancing volume over declining volume. Total volume was just under 1.5 billion. On Nasdaq, however, advance-declines were flat and so was up/down volume. Total volume was 1.85 billion on Nasdaq, with slightly more volume to the downside.
TheTechTrader.com board was mixed. The leading gainer was MDRX, one of our Charts of the Week this week, up 1.04 and breaking out on good volume. ENER was up 66 cents and SIGM 31 cents, along with WLM up 25 cents and AIRT up 28 cents.

On the losing side, QLGC got hammered on some negative news, down 2.14. ADSX was off 29 cents and MFLX down 34 cents.
Stepping back and reviewing the overall patterns, the indices managed to snap back today but Nasdaq trailed, and what I saw today was a rebound off an oversold condition.

Nothing more yet, but we'll see if we can either break out above the 1504-05 resistance level on the Nasdaq 100 or take out support at 1490. On the S&P, overhead resistance is 1195-96 and support 1184-85.

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.