Today was a very flat session. The indices were not far from the zero line at the end of the day. Nasdaq, however, was the stronger of the markets.

The day started out with a Nasdaq rally that took them above Friday's highs. The S&P 500 did not cooperate, nor did the Dow. We pulled back and tried another rally, at which point the NDX got up within a couple points of the highs it reached on the last rally high. But without any confirmation from the NDX and SUP, they fell back rather quickly before lunch, went sideways for about three hours in a very narrow pattern and then tried an afternoon rally that was choppy. They did manage to get back into the plus column for most of the indices, although not the Dow.

Net on the Dow was down about 5, the S&P was up 0.84, the Nasdaq 100 was up 7.70, the Composite 6.25. The OEX was unchanged today. The SOX Index was up 0.70, about 2 1/2 points off the high of earlier, but about 4 points off the low.

The technicals were mixed, slightly edging to the plus side on New York by 17 to 14 on advance-declines and 6 to 5 on up/down volume. Total volume was about 1.15 billion. Nasdaq advance-declines were slightly negative by 24 issues. Up/down volume, however, was 9 to 5 positive. Total volume was about 1.46 billion on this President's Day bank holiday.

TheTechTrader.com board was mostly positive today, led by SIGM, up 1.37 to a new 18-month high on nearly 2 million shares, a great day for that stock. TASR was ahead 1.03, but about 60 cents off the high and CRYP gained 58 cents. Everything else had very small fractional changes both up and down. ZICA, after a strong start and new high, backed off to close down 58 cents on the day.

Stepping back and reviewing the overall patterns, the indices tested but couldn't break through recent rally highs on the NDX and couldn't follow through to Friday's strong rally on the S&P. They pretty much moved sideways, consolidating the huge run-up we had Friday morning.

We'll see if tomorrow the market can break out and extend this or whether it rolls over and does some retesting and perhaps churns lower.

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.