The market suffered a dramatic downside thrust that broke key downside support, trendlines and moving averages, and the bears certainly made a statement today.

The day started out with a move up at the opening. They ran up to key overhead resistance on the Nasdaq 100 at 2015, getting up to short-term resistance near 1420 on the S&P 500, but rolled over hard in the morning, bounced mid-day, failed at resistance again, and then came down sharply, taking out yesterday's lows and this morning's lows with a dramatic thrust to the downside. A late bounce tried to take them off the lows, but the rolled over in the last 15-20 minutes again to close near the lows for the day going away.

Net on the day the Dow was down 227 1/2, the S&P 500 down 22.70, and the Nasdaq 100 down nearly 44. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index (SOXX) down 5.07.

Technicals confirmed the decidedly negative day on the Street, with advance-declines 22 to 9 negative on New York and 20 to 9 negative on Nasdaq. Up/down volume was 4 1/2 to 1 negative on New York on total volume of just under 1.4 billion. Nasdaq traded just under 2.2 billion, and had a 5 to 1 negative ratio.

TheTechTrader.com board, as a result, was mostly negative, but there were some outstanding gainers, particularly in the junior oils. The unabated run in Mexco Energy(MXC) and Pyramid Oil (PDO) continued today, with MXC soaring into the mid-50s at 55.70 at its high, finally getting some afternoon profit-taking , closing at 49.40, still up 6.87, on twice the outstanding float traded today. PDO got up to 28 and closed at 27.10, up 4 1/4 on almost 2 million shares.

DryShips (DRYS) was up 3.11 and Solarfun (SOLF)up 1.26 on an excellent earnings report, but even that one closed 2 1/2 points off its high earlier in the session, on very heavy volume of 38 1/2 million. GeoResources (GEOI) was up 51 cents, AgFeed Industries (FEED) came back 44 cents, and Chindex (CHDX) up 62 cents.

The DUG oil and gas ultrashort ETF jumped 69 cents to 26.92 on the heaviest volume of its history of 44.6 million. That may have reversed today.

On the downside, Energy Conversion Devices (ENER) had a sharply lower afternoon reversal, losing $4 off its mid day high and closing down 2.93. Shipper Excel Maritime (EXM) was down 1.93 and TBS International (TBSI) down 2.06. Canadian Solar (CSIQ) fell 1.33.

In the Chinese sector, China Precision Steel (CPSL) reached new rally highs at 8 this morning, but came down hard and closed at 6.57, down 1 on the day, a big negative reversal there on heavy volume of 11 million shares.

Stepping back and reviewing the hourly chart patterns, as indicated earlier, the early morning rally failed near key price and moving average resistance on the hourly chart, and then rolled over hard, coming down in an equal leg to the Monday-Tuesday decline, perhaps completing wave three of the current decline.

We'll see if they can extend it tomorrow morning, but the key areas of support to watch are the 1948-52 area on the Nasdaq 100 and the 1380-83 zone on the S&P 500.

For now the trend has turned lower, key levels of support were broken, and until this turns it appears the trend has now reversed to down for the next few days at least.

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.