The stock market indices started out ugly and ended that way, but they had a nice move intraday earlier, though unfortunately finished near the low for the day on the blue chips.

The day started out with a gap down, particularly hard on the Nasdaq 100. That was it for the morning. They rallied sharply off that opening low, about 40 points in an hour on the Nasdaq 100, but at that point the S&P 500 moved from 1274 to 1285. They then rolled over and retested hard mid-morning, held support, and then slowly worked their way back up near the highs for the day. When they couldn’t punch through they rolled over hard into the last hour and closed sharply lower.

Net on the day the Dow was down 205.67, the S&P 500 nearly 17, and the Nasdaq 100 just 3.65, about 30 points off its high. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index (SOXX) was up 1.05, but in that case also about 8 points off its high.

The technicals moved to the negative side. Advance-declines were negative by 3 to 2 on New York and 15 to 13 on Nasdaq. Up/down volume was about 2 to 1 negative on New York on total volume of a little under 1.5 billion. Nasdaq traded just under 2.4 billion and had a 7 to 5 negative ratio of on advancing over declining volume.

As a result of all those swings and despite the fact that the indices closed lower, many stocks were mixed. Leading the way to the plus side on our TheTechTrader.com board was Mercadolibre (MELI), up 2.60 today. The SDS was up 1.79, as the SPY short instrument advanced sharply with the decline in the market.

With the drop in oil today the DUG ultrashort oil & gas ETF advanced to 35.44, up 2.34 on nearly 21 million.

Among other gainers, portfolio position Acordia Pharmaceuticals (ACOR) was up 95 cents. Energy Conversion Devices (ENER), at one point up more than 4, closed up 1.32 on the day at 69.93. UAUA was up 41 cents to 8.31 today.

Solar energy stocks were mixed with Canadian Solar (CSIQ) down 1.01, Solarfun (SOLF) up 33 cents, and JA Solar (JASO) down 90 cents.

Washington Mutual (WM) had a particularly strong session, moving as high as 5.81, closing at 5.33, still up 59 cents on 195 million shares today.

On the downside, the US Oil Trust (USO) was down 2.03, as one would expect. Other than that there were mostly just fractional losses on our board.

So it was a mixed session in terms of prices on our board, but a decidedly negative day on Wall Street after two strong sessions.

Stepping back and reviewing the hourly chart patterns the indices ran right up to key overhead resistance at the neckline of the 4-week bottoming type formation developing on the Nasdaq 100 near 1875, but failed and rolled over miserably into the close. The S&P 500 similarly ran up to near resistance at the 1285-90, but failed right at 1285 and rolled over, closing at 1267.

So a disappointing finish to a promising session, but the indices are still within the parameters of a basing pattern and can still move higher if they can stop the late bleeding tomorrow.

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.