The markets had a very positive turnaround type rally today, but it was a disappointing finish because in the last hour they came off the session highs and took back a large chunk of the session gains, putting the Dow and S&P 500 back into the negative column at the close. To say the least a very disappointing finish.

The day started out with a gap down on sharply lower futures. The indices then took out the lows, went to new multi-week pullback lows, testing 1761 on the Nasdaq 100 and tagging 1200 and holding it on the S&P 500, and then staged a 5-wave advance that lasted for most of the session. With less than an hour to go they were at the highs for the day with the Nasdaq 100 having traversed 65 points over the course of the rally, and the S&P 500 moving up 34 points in the same period of time.

But with less than an hour to go they turned south and sharply so, selling off nearly 30 points on the Nasdaq 100, taking back almost half the gains. The S&P 500 dropped from 1234 to 1214, 20 points, giving back even a bigger chunk of the gains.

Net on the day the Dow was down 92.65, the S&P 500 down 13.39, but the Nasdaq 100 was up just 0.32, after it was ahead nearly 28 with about 50 min to go. So that, to say the least, was a bad way to end the day. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index (SOXX) was ahead 4.40 today.

The technicals were extremely negative in the morning by climactic-type numbers of more than 12 to 1. But at the close, advance-declines were 3 to 1 negative on New York and 3 to 2 negative on Nasdaq. Up/down was more than 2 1/2 to 1 negative on New York on total volume of 1.84 billion. Nasdaq traded 2 3/4 billion and had a 15 to 12 positive ratio on advancing over declining volume.

TheTechTrader.com board was all over the place. Many of our stocks were down sharply in the morning, came back, but then gave it up again in the last hour. An example of that was Canadian Solar (CSIQ), which came out with news of a secondary, gapped down and dropped to 33.20 before rallying back up to 36 and change, although in the last hour dropped back to 34.84, down 3.55 on the day.

DryShips (DRYS), on the other hand, rallied from just under 71 to almost 80, a nearly 9-point advance before backing off to 77.65, up 3.24 on the day on3.8 million shares, a nice reversal there.

Also in that group, similar action in Excel Maritime (EXM), which jumped from 32 to 36.60 ,closed at 35.80, up 77 cents.

Other stocks of note, recent Chart of the Week Sequenom (SQNM) at 21.90 was up another 1.84 today, reaching over 22 at one point on 3.3 million shares, outstanding action there. Chindex (CHDX) also had a strong session today, up nearly $1 to 16.60.

Brigham Exploration (BEXP) in the oil sector had a very strong session on news of an oil find, closing near 17, up 95 cents.

Portfolio position DUG had an outstanding session, as oil got hammered, jumping 2.65, closing only 3 cents off the highs for the day going away on 27.8 million shares, a very positive day there. The USO was down 5.25 today as oil dropped near $7.

On the downside, other than CSIQ, we had losses of 1.80 in Energy Conversion Devices (ENER), but that was about 3 points off its morning low. Low-priced oil had a difficult session, with Pyramid Oil (PDO) down 2.20 and GeoResources (GEOI) down 1.03.

Aluminum Corp. of China (ACH) at 26.05 was down 1.85, to a 15-month low.

Stepping back and reviewing the hourly chart patterns, the overall decline continued today as new multi-week lows were reached before a very sharp rally brought them way back, only to disappoint in the last 45-50 minutes and gave back more than half the gains.

So the trend technically is still down as declining tops and bottoms are still in place in the overall trend, although some progress was made today, perhaps the beginnings of a bottoming pattern.

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.