The best that can be said about today in my view is that the markets rebounded from a steeply oversold condition. The rally wasn't that impressive to me, particularly on Nasdaq, but a gain is a gain.

The day started with a move down, some vacillating, and then a move to lower lows by late morning. They hit their new decline lows at that point, but were unable to follow-through and then rallied in a 5-wave rally over the next several hours. With about 40 minutes to go the indices hit their peak for the day, and rolled over and pulled back, but in the last 5 minutes bounced a little bit to pad the gains.

Net on the day the Dow was up nearly 93, the S&P 500 up nearly 15, and the Nasdaq 100 17 3/4. Not bad on the surface. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index (SOXX) gained 8.60 today, and was a big reason why the Nasdaq 100 had such a solid day.

The technicals were ahead by 21 to 12 1/2 on New York on advance/declines. That was good, but Nasdaq was just 17 to 14 positive, pretty unimpressive. Up/down volume was about 3 to 1 positive on NYSE with nearly 2 billion traded. Nasdaq traded more than 2.3 billion and had about a 2 to 1 positive ratio.

TheTechTrader.com board was mixed but mostly higher with several point-plus gainers. Leading the way was Aluminum Corp. of China (ACH), which moved back over 50, closing at 49.98, up 2.83 today. FuelTek (FTEK) gained 1.45, JA Solar (JASO) 1.87, and Sigma Designs (SIGM) soared to new all-time highs at 33.20, before pulling back to close at 32.78, up 1.59.

Recent Chart of the Week Excel Maritime (EXM) was up 1.01, Blue Phoenix (BPH) snapped back 75 cents, Eschelon (ELON) up 76 cents, and Taser (TASR) gained 94 cents on nearly 6 million shares. Several others were firm, including portfolio position Research Frontiers (REFR) up 35 cents and EMC up 47 cents.

On the downside, Jones Soda (JSDA) continued weak, down 1.69. NVE Corp. (NVEC) lost 76 cents, Rediff.com India (REDF) 42 cents, and BOOM 41 cents after tagging a new all-time high in the morning.

Stepping back and reviewing the hourly chart patterns, as indicated earlier the indices made nominal new lows, extending the oversold condition. But, the snapback and 5-wave intraday rally didn't have the kind of thrust we normally look for in important bottoms and pulled back in the last hour.

So we'll see if they can do some additional basing and then perhaps get a better thrust that breaks the indices to the upside, or whether this is just a minor snapback in an ongoing down phase and we go lower.

That's the key question now that remains to be seen as we head into tomorrow's session, which is the last day of the month.

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.