The stock market had a very nasty start to the week and continued its steep downtrend of the last few sessions, taking the indices not only sharply lower but closing at the lows for the day going away.

The day started out with some back and forth action, as the market was rather quiet in the morning. But, when they failed to generate anything substantial to the upside, the indices rolled over and took out initial support, moving sharply lower early on. Then mid-day they formed bear flags ,failed right at resistance and rolled over into the afternoon and then steadily into the last hour when they backed and filled into the close. Finally, they slipped again right at the close to end near the lows for the day.

The Dow was down 153 1/2, the S&P 500 20, the Nasdaq 100 34 1/2, and the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index (SOXX) nearly 5.

The technicals were extremely negative today, by more than 5 to 1 on New York and more than 3 to 1 on Nasdaq on advance/declines. Up/down volume was worse, by about 8 to 1 on New York. The Nsadaq ratio was about 5 1/2 to 1 negative on 2.15 billion shares traded.

TheTechTrader.com board was almost 100% negative. I haven't seen that in a while other than at some very important lows, so we may be approaching one here, and with the NYSE McClellan Oscillator now at a VERY oversold -282 & the SPX oscillator at -83 that wouldn’t surprise me.

There were many point-plus losers, led by DryShips (DRYS),down 7.24. Chindex (CHDX) fell 4, Boxer Short DECK 8.03 to 91.50, and Boxer Short CMG down 5.86 to 90.57. Converted Organics (COIN) had another day of getting pounded, closing at 10.79, down 3.83 on 3.4 million shares, a heavy downside thrust there. Canadian Solar (CSIQ) in a very weak junior solar group was 3.07 to 17.41. Ascent Solar (ASTI) fell 1.37, JA Solar (JASO) was down 1.60, and Solarfun (SOLF) lost 1.15 today to 8.97. That stock was 40 just 9 weeks ago.

Energy Conversion Devices (ENER) lost 2.10 and CPHD 1.64. UEPS was down 1.61. ABK was down 2.21 in a weak financial services sector. Also in that sector, MBI lost 1.22. There were many other point-plus losers too numerous to mention.

There were no gainers on by board today other than the SMH, which gained a paltry 6 cents.

Stepping back and reviewing the hourly chart patterns, the indices started mixed, went lower and stayed lower in very neat orderly down-channels all session, and we're now at multi-session lows.

With the oscillators extremely oversold here, I would not be surprised if we saw a snapback rally to least test overhead resistance, but downside pressure remains from many aspects, both technical and fundamentals, and it's likely we'll see lower levels before this is over.

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.