The indices had another bad day to start a week, which we've seen a lot of in the last few weeks.

The day started out with a gap down. They backed and filled in the morning. They did try a rally that reached its session highs around mid-day, but failed to extend and rolled over and backed and filled in a 90-minute period, during which time the indices moved 8 times back and forth ,but couldn't break out.

Finally they had a nominal break out on the Nasdaq 100, but no confirmation from the S&P 500 causing a rollover late in the day, and they closed near the session lows.

Net on the day the Dow was down nearly 224, the S&P 500 down 22 1/2, and the Nasdaq 100 down 27.67. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index (SOXX) was down 5.67, and closed under 200 for the first time in 10 years, at 195.72.

The technicals confirmed the down day. Advance-declines were negative by 24 to 7 1/2 on New York and by better than 2 to 1 negative on Nasdaq. Up/down volume was about 5 1/2 to 1 negative on New York on total volume of about 1.3 billion. Nasdaq traded about 1.85 billion and had about 5 1/2 to 1 negative volume ratio.

TheTechTrader.com board was vastly negative, although not too steeply so. Loss leader today was CF at 50.44 down 4.53, AAPL fell below 90 today to 88.14, down 2.10. A couple ETFs we follow, like the BGU down 2.60 at 34.21, and the ERX, down 2.13 at 44.62.

Other point-plus losers included ETF’s QLD down 1.03 and USO 1.18.

Other stocks of note in agricultural group, AGU dropped 1.63, and MOS dropped 90 cents today. POT dropped, but only 66 cents.

On the plus side, the SDS ultra short instrument was up 4.79 and the QLD up 2.99. BGZ, which is the triple large-cap bear ETF, jumped 6.24 to 89.93.

Other than that there were just small fractional gains, with ENER up 88 cents, EXM 39 cents, and CAL 51 cents. UAUA also gained 54 cents. Portfolio position QCOR at 8.60 was up 45 cents. Chart of the Week LVS at 6.73 was up 42 cents.

Stepping back and reviewing the hourly chart patterns, the indices came down sharply, rallied mid-day, and then rolled over and closed near the lows for the day. Not a good start to the week, to say the least, and we'll see if key short-term support is taken out at 1150 on the NDX and 850 on the S&P 500, very near where they closed. So a lower opening tomorrow would break short-term support, which could lead to a retest of last Thursday's lows.

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.