The markets had an unmitigated disastrous session today, opening lower with a gap down on negative pre-market futures and selling off sharply early in the morning. They bounced back and forth around the inauguration, and when there was nothing major said of economic significance, the markets continued to make lower lows and lower highs all day, failing to break through trendlines or moving averages at any point, and closing near the lows for the day going away.

Net on the day the Dow was down 332 and change, at 7949, under 8000 for the first time in a while. The S&P 500 was down 44.90 to 805.22, and the Nasdaq 100 was down 61.53 to 1136.61. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index (SOXX) closed under 200 at 199.07, down 15.35, a loss of more than 7 percent.

The technicals were extremely negative. Advance-declines were negative by about 9 to 1 on New York and by 6 to 1 on Nasdaq. Up/down volume was the culprit today. Declining volume was 1 2/3 billion and advancing volume less than 52 million on New York, about a 32 to 1 negative ratio. Nasdaq had 1.92 billion down and 65 million up, a similar volume ratio to New York of about 32 to 1 negative.

TheTechTrader.com board was all negative, except for the two ultrashort instruments we follow regularly. The FAZ financial ultrashort ETF was up 25.74 to 88.15, a big percentage gain. The Direxion Large Cap Bear 3X Shares (BGZ) at 77.88 was up 10.69. Other than that, everything was lower. Leading the way were the banks/financials, with WFC at 14.23 down 4.45, JPM at 18.20 was -4.62, BAC at 5.10 was down 2.08, C at 2.80 was down 70 cents and MS at 13.10 was down 2.49.

Apple (AAPL) to a new 2-year low at 78.20 was down 4.13 today.

In addition the FAS ultralong financials at 7.63 was down 5.12, the Direxion Large Cap Bull 3X Shares (BGU) at 25.95 was down 4.75, the Ultra Oil & Gas ProShares (DIG) dropped 2.76 at 24.50 and the U.S. Oil Fund ETF (USO) lost 1.20 to 28.66.

The iShares FTSE/Xinhua China 25 Index (FXI) lost 2.21, and the iShares MSCI Brazil Index ETF (EWZ) 2.62 in a very negative ETF sector.

The agriculture stocks got hammered again. Potash (POT) at 66.48 was 4.86, Mosaic (MOS) at 32.15 was down 3.30, CF Holdings (CF) at 44.75 was down 2.78, and Agrium (AGU) at 30.67 was down 2.99.

We can go on and on, but suffice it to say it was a disastrous session on Wall Street.

Stepping back and reviewing the hourly chart patterns, the indices plunged early, took out support, and kept going, taking out secondary and more key support at last week's lows. They could be now in a freefall mode, but we'll see what tomorrow brings.

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.