The markets went up, down and then sideways for half a session, and bored the heck out of us. Net on the day the indices were up small amounts, and the Nasdaq was chiefly up because the SOX index was up more than 2 percent today.

The day started out with a solid rally that took us sharply higher on both indices, taking out the previous rally highs, but a mid-morning pullback resulted in a bounce that failed to follow-through, and then they rolled over hard into the lunch hour. They made the lows for the session right at the lunch hour, which also was at the previous lows, so the retest was successful. The bounce that ensued was a slow, tedious, corrective-looking rally, and the direction of the market for the next few days could depend on what it does tomorrow. So I'm looking for a key session tomorrow to determine market direction over the next week or so.

Net on the day, the Dow was up less than 9, the S&P 500 up half a point, the Nasdaq Composite 4.65 and the 100 3.65. As stated before the SOX Index was up more than 9 points, or nearly 2 1/4 percent.

The technicals were positive by 18 to 14 on New York and 16 to 14 on Nasdaq, fairly narrow today. Up/down volume was 7 to 6 positive on New York on total volume of just under 1.4 billion. Nasdaq had 1.9 billion traded, but only a 5 to 4 positive plurality.

There were some outstanding issues on TheTechTrader.com board. CUTR was up more than 3 points on heavy volume today. DCAI continued its run of recent days, up another 1.65 today.

Other stocks of note, WPTE was up 69 cents, PARL up 57 cents, NWRE 46 cents, MIKR up 53 cents and MFLX up 68 cents.

One of our Charts of the Week, KERX, was up 34 cents. DDDC had a strong day today, up nearly 90 cents, and the SMH was up 54 cents, chiefly due to INTC being up 50 cents and BRCM up 68 cents.

On the losing side, AIRT got hit on profit-taking, down 1.64, and IMAX gave up 55 cents of its recent gains. SIGM backed off 24 cents, and ADSX backed off a quarter. Other than that, there were very small fractional changes.

Stepping back and reviewing the overall pattern, despite today's sloppy showing the market still remains in an uptrend off the January lows, but Nasdaq is trailing badly, and that does not auger well for the market.

We'll have to see if the Dow and S&P can pull Nasdaq backed up, and whether the SOX index can continue to fortify things as well. That was the outstanding index of the session and the main positive in my opinion for Nasdaq.

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.