The four-day rally came to an abrupt end today, with the indices closing down at their lows for the day going away.

The day started out with a move down that stabilized in the morning at support. A late morning bounceback brought the Nasdaq 100 up near its rally highs, but the S&P trailed miserably at that point.  Around the lunch hour they rolled over, came down to secondary support and bounced.  In the afternoon they were fairly volatile, bouncing back and forth on five different occasions, with the S&P repeatedly failing to take out any resistance.  The S&P then rolled over late in the session and took the NDX with it.

Net on the day, the Dow was down 62.36, closing right near the lows for the day.  The S&P was down nearly 12, the Nasdaq 100 11 1/2, and the SOX Index down 5 1/2.

The technicals were 23 to 9 negative on New York and 20 to 9 1/2 negative on Nasdaq.  Up/down volume was more than 4 to 1 negative on New York with a total of 1.6 billion traded, and 2 1/2 to 1 negative on Nasdaq, with 1.43 billion traded.

TheTechTrader.com board was mostly negative today, led by Energy Conversion Devices (ENER) down 1.57, Momenta Pharmaceuticals (MNTA) 1.60, and BioCryst Pharmaceuticals (BCRX), which, after rallying to 18 1/4 earlier in the session, sold off sharply and closed at 16.59, down 1.06 on 12.5 million.

Other losses of note, Convera (CNVR) fell 52 cents, Forward Industries (FORD) 92 cents, Global Industries (GLBL) 80 cents, and Rediff.com India (REDF) down 69 cents.

On the plus side we had fractional gains.  Dynamic Materials (BOOM) was up 71 cents, DayStar Technologies (DSTI) 47 cents, and Neoware (NWRE) 31 cents, and Sonus (SNUS) up 34 cents on 5.5 million, but well off its earlier high.

Stepping back and reviewing the overall patterns, the four-day rally was reversed today and the indices closed lower, with the S&P particularly negative, breaking back down through its moving averages on the hourly charts, and the NDX is still hanging above them.

We'll see if they can extend the decline, or whether they do some retesting and are successful and move back up.

Good trading!

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.