Today's session had three very distinct parts. The day started out with an early dip before a very strong rally ensued. The NDX went from 1535 to 1561, taking out the rally highs of the past few weeks and taking out key resistance in the 1541-42 range. The S&P 500 similarly broke out of its recent consolidation and went to new rally highs, reaching as high as 1240.

Then the market began a slow decline before lunch hour that lasted until early afternoon and then accelerated sharply to the downside and nearly retested the opening flat line on both indices.

But the market bounced, retested and then had an afternoon move up that brought them back substantially by a one-third retracement on Nasdaq and a two-thirds retracement on the S&P.

Net on the day the Dow was up 46, the S&P 500 up 4, the Nasdaq 100 up 9, and the Composite 6 1/3. The SOX was up about 3 points.

The technicals were mixed but slightly positive. Advance-declines were 17 to 15 positive on New York and 16 to 15 negative on Nasdaq. But up/down volume on Nasdaq was about 3 to 2 positive and about the same on New York. So, despite the up/down volume being positive on Nasdaq, there were still 94 more stocks down than up.

TheTechTrader.com board was very mixed, but one of the stocks we've recently traded and followed closely, MFLX, exploded to new all-time highs. It took out 22.30 resistance, closing at 23.27, up 2 1/2 points, a key breakout there.

Other stocks of note, MAMA, an old favorite of ours, came to life and exploded for 1.66 on nearly 13 million shares. QLGC was ahead 1.58 in the chip sector, BRCM was up 50 cents, and the SMH managed to be up 18 cents on the session after being up much higher earlier in the day.

CRYP, one of our recent Charts of the Week, was up 50 cents. WGAT was up 38 cents, MIKR 33 cents, and a new stock on our trading board, ATHR, up 55 cents today.

On the losing side, there were fractional losses across the board with the exception of DDDC. It got hammered for 1.04, but gave back nearly 1.35 off its session high earlier in the day, a big reversal there.

Other stocks of note, KERX was down 38 cents, PARL 58 cents, SIGM 38 cents, WPTE 24 cents, and ZICA 22 cents.

Stepping back and reviewing the overall patterns, the indices reached up and hit the top of the up-channels on Nasdaq, and the rising tops on the S&P as well and backed off very sharply.

The afternoon rally could have been more of just a retracement, and I think tomorrow is going to be a key session for the short-term, because if the market opens lower and goes down sharply in the morning and takes out the afternoon lows, a new decline could ensue.

Until that occurs, the trend is still up and they did not break them today.

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.