The market had a negative start to the week, but it opened differently. With the futures slightly firmer, the indices opened higher, but they reached their session highs almost immediately. They sold off, bounced after holding support, but then failed and sold off sharply in the morning, taking out key short-term resistance, consolidated late in the morning before another sharp hit took them to more session lows. The rest of the afternoon was spent in a consolidative manner, but the indices weren't able to get through resistance and then rolled over sharply in the last hour, but with about a half hour to go found their legs and bounced very sharply, taking back a good chunk of the losses.

The Dow, which was down more than 180 points at one point, closed down 108. The S&P 500 bounced 8 points off its low, still down 13 on the day. The Nasdaq 100 was 15 off its low, but still down 19 on the session.

The technicals were decisively negative by 3 to 1 on advance-declines on New York and 2 to 1 on Nasdaq. Up/down volume was 3 1/2 to 1 negative on New York and a little less than 3 to 1 negative on Nasdaq.

Total volume was a little less than 1 1/4 billion on New York and more than 1.9 billion on Nasdaq.

TheTechTrader.com board was active. The leaders by far were the shipping stocks today, which had a stellar session, led by TBSI up $6.95, DryShips (DRYS) up 4.93 and Excel Maritime (EXM) up 3.40.

FuelTek (FTEK), featured in Barron's, was up 2.53 today, and China Medical Technologies (CMED) was up 2.95.

Many secondary Chinese stocks had a poor day. China Precision Steel (CPSL) was down 63 cents, China Natural Resources (CHNR) 91 cents, Chindex (CHDX) down 42 cents, RCH down 52 cents, and SEED down 67 cents.

Two ultra-short index ETF positions we recently took in our model portfolio had a good session today: the SDS advanced 94 cents and the QID up 66 cents.

Cree Inc. (CREE) was up 44 cents, but was about 1.70 off its mid-afternoon highs, selling off late in the session. Low-priced biotech EXAS, one of our charts to watch this week, was up 66 cents. Global Solutions (GSOL) advanced 85 cents, GigaMedia (GIGM) another 30 cents, Sigma Designs (SIGM) 35 cents, and CSUN up 41 cents. Ascent Solar (ASTI) advanced 38 cents.

On the downside, loss leaders were Cepheid (CPHD), down 2.06. CRDC fell 1.76 and Eschelon Corp. (ELON) 1.06.

VMware (VMW) continued its recent sharp pullback down 4.22, and Nuance Communications (NUAN) was off 90 cents today.

Stepping back and reviewing the hourly chart patterns, the indices broke hard, took out the trendline and neckline support on the S&P 500, snapped back to it late in the session. But the Nasdaq 100 has not confirmed that yet, by bouncing off its intermediate rising trendline late in the session.

So we'll see if we can get a break of today's lows and an extension of the down move, or whether they'll be able to stabilize in this area and move higher. We're at a key level in the market, and the week started out as we thought it might with a definitive down-day.

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.