The market had a disappointing session, as the morning consolidation patterns rolled over in the afternoon and took out key short-term layers of support, spiked down with about a half hour to go, reaching the lows for the day at just above 1190 support zone on the Nasdaq 100 and near the 877-78 area on the S&P 500.

They did snap back to take them off the lows over the last 30 min, but net on the day the Dow closed down 219 points near 8605, the S&P 500 was down over 19 to 885.28, and the Nasdaq 100 lost 21.17 at just under 1205. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index (SOXX) had a very negative session, down nearly 6 percent, or 12.21. That did not help Nasdaq today, to say the least.

The technicals were negative by about 3 to 2 on declines over advances on New York and by a little less than 2 to 1 on Nasdaq. Up/down volume was 3 to 1 negative on New York on lighter total volume of 1 1/3 billion. Nasdaq traded about 2 billion and had about a 3 to 1 negative volume ratio.

TheTechTrader.com board was mostly negative, with a few gainers. Auxilium Pharmaceuticals Inc. (AUXL) jumped 3.39 on positive drug news. Emergent BioSolutions (EBS), yesterday's Chart of the Day, jumped 1.25 to 25.30.

The short instruments were up of course, with the QID ahead by 2.02 to 67.12 and the BGZ up 3.22 to 62.67.

In addition, portfolio position SQNM at 20.71 was up 71 cents on more than 2 billion, and UEPS closed at 13.09, up 28 cents today. That was our Chart of the Day.

On the downside, agriculture stocks got hammered. Leading the way to the downside was POT down 5.88 to 74.22, CF at 50.60 down 4.90, AGU down 2.07 to 32.19, and MOS down 2.42 to 34.75.

Oil got hammered to new 4 1/2-year lows, with the DIG down 3.47 to 27.14 and the USO down 2.08 to 32.73.

Airlines were strong, with UAUA up 41 cents at 11.01, and CAL at 16.93 up 89 cents in a generally firm airline sector due to the drop in oil.

Stepping back and reviewing the hourly chart patterns, the indices meandered in a coil-type pattern for most of the morning, and when they could not break out around mid-day they started to roll over and took out support and plunged in a 5-wave decline that culminated with a low of the session with about half an hour to go.

In the last half hour they did bounce back to pare back the losses. The rising bottoms line on the NDX and SPX were severely tested but did not break. So it'll be key, over the next day or two, whether they can hold these support levels and rally, or if they do take today's lows out , we could be in store for a much deeper retest.

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.