The indices tried on several occasions to break through this weekââ,¬â"¢s highs, but were unable to do so all morning and drifted in a narrow range for most of the day.  In the afternoon when their final rally attempt failed, they rolled over and sold off steadily into the close with a loss on the session.

The Dow, which reached just 8 points from its all-time high intraday, reversed about 64 points and closed down 39.38 points on the day.  The S&P 500 was down 3.30, the Nasdaq 100 down 7.46, and the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index (SOXX) was down 5.42.

Technicals reversed in the afternoon to the downside, about 3 to 2 negative on advance-declines on both exchanges.  Up/down volume was about 4 to 3 negative on New York and about 11 to 6 negative on Nasdaq.  Total volume on New York was about 1.4 billion, and on Nasdaq it was about 1 Ã,¾ billion.

TheTechTrader.com board was mostly narrowly mixed.  There were just a few outstanding stocks both up and down.  On the plus side, just PW Eagle (PWEI) was up 1.03, the only stock on my personal board up more than a point.  CHDX followed up yesterdayââ,¬â"¢s strong gain with another 93 cent gain to new multi-year highs.  Fuel Tech (FTEK) gained 56 cents and NVE Corp. (NVEC) 45 cents, and ACOR snapped back 50 cents from yesterdayââ,¬â"¢s profit-taking.

On the downside, loss leaders were U.S. Global Investors (GROW) down 2.49, Hansen Natural Corp. (HANS) down 2, and Baidu.com (BIDU) down 1.37.  Energy Conversion Devices (ENER) also gave back 1.83 from yesterdayââ,¬â"¢s big gain. 

Stepping back and reviewing the hourly chart patterns, as indicated the indices tried on a few occasions to break out but couldnââ,¬â"¢t do so.  They had some late-afternoon Friday profit-taking and closed at the lows for the day going away.

But there still has been no major downside break, as the overall trend of the last couple months continues to the plus side.   Fridayââ,¬â"¢s profit-taking did very little to damage the intermediate trend, but we did take out a couple minor layers of support today.

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.