At the end of the session the markets had a very narrow change to the negative side, with the Dow practically unchanged.

The day stared out with a move up to new rally highs at important overhead resistance at 1538 NDX, and hit as high as 1204 on the S&P before a fairly sharp pullback occurred on the Nasdaq 100. The S&P held up very well and actually made a nominal new high at that point, but the NDX caused a drag on the S&P and in the mid-afternoon the market pulled back substantially and retested some key support levels. They actually took them out slightly, getting down to 1199 on the S&P and 1523 or so on the NDX before bouncing in the afternoon.

But it wasn't very convincing and net on the day the indices were down 0.37 on the Dow, 1.31 on the S&P, 5.44 on the Nasdaq 100, and 4.63 on the Composite. The SOX was up just 0.18 and contributed to the narrowness of the indices today.

Technicals were narrow on both exchanges by less than 100 issues positive on New York and less than 100 issues negative on Nasdaq. Up/down volume was 6 to 5 negative on New York with a paltry 1.25 billion traded. Nasdaq traded a little over 1.5 billion with about a 3 to 2 negative plurality on up/down volume.

There were some outstanding stocks on TheTechTRader.com board today. AIRT exploded, ran to new rally highs, and is now about 9 points off its recent lows, up another 3.88 today on heavy volume. ENER, one of our Charts of the Week finalists this week, was up 2 3/4. DCAI was up more than 3 points. RNWK was up 1.17.

Other stocks of note, ADSX, one of our Chart of the Week Watchboard positions, ran hard and closed at the high for the day, up 50 cents. HLIT, another of our Watchboard positions, was up 94 cents. MFLX was up 42 cents, and closed at a new rally high at 20.17 PARL snapped back 51 cents, and IMAX was up another 61 cents, getting across 12 before backing off and closing below it.

On the downside, the loss leaders were CRYP, which gave back 1.89 from its recent gains, and CKCM, also giving back some of its recent gains, down 1.75.

Stepping back and reviewing the hourly index chart patterns, despite the fact that the markets pulled back, it was in a fairly orderly fashion and the pullbacks did hold near key price supports and moving averages on the hourly charts. The S&P was well above those.

We'll see if we can carry forward tomorrow, or whether the markets continue today's nominal pullbacks. I suspect the markets still have some more retesting to do, and I'm looking for some additional backing & filling/retesting over the next day or two.

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.