The markets were up in the morning, down in the afternoon, and closed near the zero line with very small fractional changes. The day started out with another thrust to new rally highs. The Nasdaq 100 burst through 2000 and got up to 2006, which turned out to be the high for the day. They then sold off and retested support successfully, and rallied again, but in the afternoon when the S&P 500 made new highs and got right near 1480, the Nasdaq 100 failed to take out the morning highs, and that resulted in a rollover that lasted into the close.

Net on the day the Dow was down 17, the S&P 500 up 0.07, and the Nasdaq 100 down 0.02. It was a very, very narrow change today. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index (SOXX) was down 9 3/4 today, and that really put pressure on the Nasdaq 100, which surprisingly wasn't down as much as it may have been.

Technicals were decidedly negative by 3 to 2 on advance-declines on both exchanges. Up/down volume was about 7 to 5 negative on New York and about 11 to 7 negative on Nasdaq. Total volume was just over 1.2 billion on New York, and about 1.8 billion on Nasdaq.

On TheTechTrader.com board, point-plus gainers included VMware (VMW) up 1.64, DG FastChannel (DGIT) up 1.32, Cardica (CRDC) up 1.35, and portfolio position Auxilium Pharmaceuticals (AUXL) up 1.12. That was our Chart of the Day.

On the downside, shipping stocks had a difficult day. DryShips (DRYS) dropped 3.71, Excel Maritime (EXM) 47 cents, and PBSI 1.06.

Other stocks on note, Eschelon Corp. (ELON) dropped 1.63, FuelTek (FTEK) 1.15, and LBK in the solar energy group 1.08.

But the loser by far was Aluminum Corp. of China (ACH), which, after ALCOA announced that they're selling their 10% ownership position, was down nearly 6 points today.

Stepping back and reviewing the hourly chart patterns, let's call it a "Mexican Standoff," as the markets were up in the morning, down in the afternoon, and closed near the zero line on the SPX and NDX. However, the late action sold off, broke the 3-day up-channel on the Nasdaq 100 and on the S&P 500, but did hold near secondary support, and we'll have to see if there's a downside extension tomorrow morning or whether they can take them back up again.

I do suspect we may get a deeper retracement and test of lower levels.

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.