The markets had a very similar day to Monday in that there was a sharp sell-off in the morning, a bounce mid-day morning and then a move to afternoon lows which pressed weekly support on the SPX. But once again in the afternoon they came back solidly with a move from 1473 to 1495 on the NDX and from 928 to 939 on the SPX, closing near the afternoon rally highs going away and paring way back on the day's losses. However, they did end the session on the downside.

Net on the day the Dow closed down 24.49 at 8738.57, about 80 points off the low. The S&P 500 fell 3.29 to 979.14, about 11 points off its low. The Nasdaq 100 was down 6.28 at 1497.25, closing 22 points off its low, and the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index (SOXX) managed to gain 0.60 today, coming way back by 6 points off its low.

The technicals did not manage to get back into the plus column. Advance-declines were negative by 210 issues on New York and by nearly 500 issues on Nasdaq. Up/down volume was negative by 6 to 5 on both exchanges, with total volume of 1.15 billion on New York and 2.3 billion on Nasdaq.

TheTechTrader.com board was very narrowly mixed. On the plus side, GreenHunter Energy (GRH) had the biggest percentage gain, from 2.29 to 4.32, before settling back to 3.24, still up 1.38 on 4 million shares, a big percentage gain there.

Among the ag/chem stocks, leading the way were Potash (POT) up 1.80 at 117.34 and Mosaic (MOS) 1.75 to 55.28.
Aluminum Corp. of China (ACH) jumped 1.41 to 26.98, and the iShares FTSE/Xinhua China 25 Index (FXI) gained 1.10 to 39.17.

Among other ETFs, the UltraShort Real Estate ProShares (SRS) gained 67 cents 18.52, the the Direxion Small Cap 3x Bear (TZA) 21 cents to 21.21, and the U.S. Oil Fund ETF (USO) jumped 78 cents to 38.97, tagging a new multi-month high intraday of 39.21.

On the downside, Apple (AAPL) lost 2.47 to 140.25. In the weaker financial sector, Goldman Sachs (GS) lost 2.63 to 146.68, Wells Fargo (WFC) 75 cents to 24.91, Morgan Stanley (MS) 1.72 to 29.26, and JP Morgan (JPM) 42 cents to 34.84.

Other losses of note, Cree Inc. (CREE) backed off 74 cents to 29.48, and Palm Inc. (PALM) dropped 71 cents to 11.99.

Stepping back and reviewing the hourly chart patterns, the sideways range movement continued on the S&P 500, now in its 8th day, and the NDX is following suit. It will be interesting to see if they break to the upside or roll over and take out the lows and top out in this zone. We'll likely find that out over the next day or two.

Harry Boxer is a technical consultant to many Wall Street hedge funds and large institutional traders, and author of TheTechTrader.com.