We had a follow-up up-day to the last couple days rally mode, but once again the NDX trailed the S&P and Dow & late in the session, pulled back to retest intraday support, although that was successful. The indices bounced late, with the S&P and Dow closing not far from their session highs.

Net on the day the Dow was up 61, the S&P 8, the Nasdaq 100 4, and the Composite 6 1/4, the SOX 4 1/2. That helped Nasdaq today avoid the loss column.

The technicals were better on New York than they were on Nasdaq. Advance-declines were nearly 11 to 5. On Nasdaq they were 17 to 13. Up/down volume was a little more than 2 to 1 positive on New York. Total volume was about 1 1/4 billion. Nasdaq volume was about 1.5 billion, with about a 4 to 3 plurality of advancing volume over decline volume.

TheTechTrader.com trading board was very mixed, with only one outstanding issue today. That was one of our favorites of recent weeks, PARL, which moved to a new all-time time. It soared ahead by more than 3 points, not far off the highs for the day.

Other stocks of note, SIGM broke key 4-week resistance at 9.20, closing at 9.43, up 67 cents, a breakout there. EVOL was up 3/4 on 2 million shares on news, and BOOM was up 50 cents, after reaching new rally highs, though it was up more a point at one point today.

The SMH was up 49 cents, the QQQQs up 12 cents, and WPTE was up 34 cents.

On the downside CKCM was down 97 cents and AIRT 79 cents, giving back some of their recent gains. TASR fell 41 cents.

Stepping back and reviewing the overall patterns, the indices did manage to follow-through and get up through the declining tops lines and down-channels of 2005. But color me unconvinced, particularly with Nasdaq trailing the Dow and S&P & NOT confirming the afternoon SPX & DJI new highs. We hit some formidable overhead resistance on some of the indices today at their moving averages on the daily charts as well as several other technical factors which perhaps caused the afternoon decline.

The Fed speaks tomorrow, and that may create some volatility.

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.