It was a whipsaw session, with the indices making five distinct moves. They moved down sharply at the open, held support, bounced sharply into the lunch hour, formed mini head-and-shoulders tops mid-day, and then came down in the afternoon but held the lows and then bounced an hour later. Despite a nominal new low for the S&P in the afternoon session, the NDX did not confirm. The indices snapped back sharply late in the session but in the last 15 minutes backed off one last time.

Net on the day it was a Mexican Standoff, as the indices closed very flat with the S&P up just 1/2 a point, the Nasdaq 100 down 1.30, and the Composite up 1.06. The SOX was ahead 3.44, which helped Nasdaq, but the Dow was down 31 in the blue-chip sector.

Technicals were narrowly mixed as well. Advance-declines were 17 to 14 positive on New York, but 15 to 14 negative on Nasdaq. Up/down volume was about 6 to 5 positive on New York on a total of more than 1.1 billion, but Nasdaq was just a tad to the plus side on 1 2/3 billion traded.

TheTechTrader.com board was also narrowly mixed. The leader by far was Taser (TASR) up 1.25. Broadcom (BRCM) managed to gain 54 cents, Energy Conversion Devices (ENER) was up 47 cents, and Nanogen (NGEN) rose 25 cents, with Applied Digital (ADSX) up 21 cents and Ariad Pharmaceuticals (ARIA) up 28 cents.

On the downside, Mikron (MIKR) was off 38 cents, Keryx (KERX) down 33 cents, and World Poker Tour (WPTE) down 42 cents. The loss leader on my board was Smith Micro (SMSI) down 1.03 on heavy volume of over 1 million.

Stepping back and reviewing the overall patterns, the indices still remain in rising consolidation patterns, or shallow rising channels. I'm not convinced that this a solid-enough rally to continue, but we'll see if can get a breakout tomorrow to confirm one.

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.