The markets had an up-session, but it was pretty volatile, especially after the Fed announcement.

The day started out with a small move up right to resistance, a pullback followed that held support on the Nasdaq 100 and above it on the S&P. Then they had a solid morning up move, which took the S&P to new rally highs, but the NDX failed miserably at that point and after lunch they pulled back one more time. That was successful, and a move back up towards the session highs occurred just before the Fed announcement. The quarter-point raise, which was expected, resulted in an initial move upward which took the S&P to new rally highs but right at the 1195 formidable resistance zone, with the NDX getting to just beneath its 1533-35 resistance zone, getting up to just over 1531.

A very sharp pullback occurred at that point, with the NDX dropping from 1531 to 1515 and change in about 45 minutes. The S&P dropped from about 1195 to 1189, but late in the session they came back again with a sharp snapback and took back about 2/3 off the losses from that afternoon slide.

Net on the day, the Dow did not manage to hold 10,600, which it was above earlier, although it did close up 45 today to 10597. The S&P was up 3 3/4 to 1193 and change, and the Nasdaq 100 was up only 1.44. With the Sox down 2.63 today, it put a lot of pressure on Nasdaq. The Composite was up 6 and change.

The technicals were positive, but less than what they had been earlier by 5 to 3 on New York on advance-declines and less than 3 to 2 on Nasdaq. Up/down volume was 2 to 1 positive on New York, with 1.55 billion traded, a little less than yesterday.

On Nasdaq it was about 11 to 8 positive, on total volume of about 1.9 billion.

There were some outstanding stocks today on TheTechTrader.com board. A stock we traded a few times today, MFLX, was up 2 3/4 on over 1 million shares, which is heavy volume for that stock. Another stock we traded today, NVDA, was up 1.30 today.

Other stocks of note, one of our Watchboard stocks, ESLR, was up 53 cents to a new multi-year high, acting great today. EGHT was up a quarter, CRYP was up 27 cents, and SIGM up 17 cents.

On the downside, TZOO and TASR were off about 40+ cents, and PARL, which made a new all-tie high over 27 this morning, got slammed for 3 points in the afternoon, closing down about a 1/2 point today.

Stepping back and reviewing the hourly chart patterns, the indices as indicated tested key overhead resistance and backed sharply off of those levels, but were able to come back near the close. We'll see if that was just short covering or whether it's significant. Tomorrow the indices will have to do some additional testing to determine whether or not the recent up trend can continue or whether they're going to do some pulling back here.

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.