The markets went through a roller coaster ride today and suffered some losses, but they were fortunate enough in the last 90 minutes to come back from very steep losses, and in the S&P 500 's case from very important support.

The day started off with a gap up and a strong surge early in the morning that hit the session highs. Within an hour and a half they retested the highs, were unable to punch through, rolled over mid-day to test intraday support where they bounced, but got very little follow through. The indices then accelerated to the downside when they broke support. After that the Nasdaq 100 dropped 40 points in about 40 minutes, the S&P dropped about 20 points in the same period of time.

With about 90 minutes to go they reached their lows for the session near key support and bounced sharply. Only a pullback in the last 15- minutes prevented them from closing at the highs of the afternoon rally.

Net on the day the Dow was down 101, the S&P 500 was off 8, and the Nasdaq 100 down 10. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index (SOXX) was down 1.51.

The technicals were negative by about 3 to 2 on advance-declines on New York and about 4 to 3 on Nasdaq. Up/down volume was about 8 to 5 negative on New York with about 1.3 billion traded. Nasdaq was a little less than 2 to 1 negative on a total of just under 2.2 billion traded.

As a result of today's roller coaster action, TheTechTrader.com board was quite mixed. On the plus side, junior energy stocks had another good session. Royale Energy (ROYL), our Chart of the Day yesterday, exploded, ran past 11 and closed at 11.09, up 2.79 on 9.7 million shares. Portfolio position Northern Oil & Gas (NOG) also popped, as a positive article appeared in Bloomberg, and the stock closed at 12.65 up 1.22. Another junior oil with a solid session today was OMNI Energy (OMNI), which advanced 1.07 to 6.78, the third biggest percentage gainer on Nasdaq, gaining 22 1/2 percent.

Other point-plus gainers included Acordia Pharmaceuticals (ACOR), yesterday's big gainer on positive drug news, up another 1.81 today, and AgFeed Industries (FEED), which closed at 17, up 1.40 on 1.6 million, snapping back sharply.

The only other point-plus gainer on our board was recent portfolio position DUG, the ultrashort oil & gas ETF, up 1.09, closing right at the high for the day going away on more than 20.6 million.

On the downside, the USO Oil ETF was down 2.39 as oil retreated sharply. Excel Maritime (EXM) in the shipping group was down 1.23, DryShips (DRYS) 1.53, and TBS International (TBSI) 1.50, as the shippers were down today despite the drop in oil.

There was profit-taking in some of the other junior oils, as Mexco Energy (MXC) fell 1.50 and Pyramid Oil (PDO) dropped 1.31.

Other stocks of note, Avant Therapeutics (AVAN) gave back 1.08 after yesterday's big gain, and Canadian Solar (CSIQ) in the solar energy sector lost 1.31 in a weak solar energy group. Solarfun (SOLF) also lost 33 cents, and JA Solar (JASO) just 2 cents.

Stepping back and reviewing the hourly chart patterns, the S&P 500 rolled over in mid-afternoon and was slammed down hard to 1370 which was the late April low, and appears to be completing a head-and-shoulder topping formation. Any further damage could knock the market for a loop. The Nasdaq has not confirmed but also had a trying session today.

We'll see what today's session meant to the overall trend over the next day or two.

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.