It was volatile day but in a narrow range for most of the session, and in the afternoon the market staged a rally that took them back up to retest the morning highs on the NDX and took out the morning highs on the S&P. In fact, they retested yesterday's highs on the S&P before backing off late in the session.

Net on the day, the Dow was up down 0.24. The S&P was up just 0.22. The Nasdaq Composite was down 1.78 and the 100 down less than 5. The SOX was down 3.71.

The technicals were narrowly mixed. The NYSE advance-declines were positive by 98 issues and Nasdaq was positive by 81 issues. So a very narrow day.

Up/down volume was dead-even flat on New York with about 1.44 billion traded, and Nasdaq was about 5 to 4 negative on total volume of roughly 1.85 billion.

TheTechTrader.com board had some outstanding issues today. FCEL, one of our old picks, roared ahead up 1.69. PARL snapped back nearly 2 points today.

Other stocks of note on our board, ZICA snapped back a point off its low, closing up 43 cents on the day. SLNK was up 30 cents, SIGM 34 cents, ESLR 26 cents, and AIRT 26 cents as well.

On the downside, KERX lost 66 cents. Other stocks showed just fractional losses. On our large-cap board, nearly all the stocks we follow were down small fractions today. BRCM was down 84 cents and led the SMH down, which was off 34 cents. QLGC backed off 28 cents as well.

Stepping back and reviewing the overall patterns, despite the sharp afternoon decline yesterday, the indices managed to meander in about a 10-point range on the NDX since yesterday afternoon. Although the S&P did stage an afternoon breakout today and retested its highs, it did back off late in the day.

So blue chips continue to act a little bit better, but today was very similar to yesterday afternoon's session in this ongoing consolidation.

The NDX did make a nominal new low below yesterday afternoon's lows but held the morning lows, and so far we're in a consolidation of the big run-up we've had recently without as much damage as one might have thought based on yesterday afternoon's decline. So far, no downside follow through, but that could easily change & quickly.

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.