The indices ended the day with losses to follow up yesterday’s decisive decline, but the going was volatile. The indices opened sharply lower to new pullback lows, and then rallied just as sharply to test yesterday afternoon’s rally highs but couldn’t get through. They then came down to retest, made new lows on the SPX but failed to do so on the NDX, and that resulted in a snapback rally that went right back up to resistance again and failed.

At that point they went in to multi-hour narrow trading ranges, as the patterns narrowed from the apex of two-day coils. They did nominally break out, then pulled back, and then tried a real decisive move with intraday gap-ups that failed right at resistance again. That resulted in the last 30-minute steep pullback that put the indices in the negative column.

Net on the day the Dow was down 29.93 at 9280.67, the S&P 500 down 3.39 at 994.75, and the Nasdaq 100 off just 1.56 at 1594.28.

The technicals were negative by 3 to 2 on advance-declines on New York but only by 124 issues on Nasdaq. Up/down volume was about a little less than 3 to 2 negative on New York on total volume of more than 1 1/3 billion. Nasdaq traded a little over 1.9 billion and had an 11 to 8 negative volume ratio.

TheTechTrader.com board was extremely narrowly mixed today, with just a few outstanding gainers and losers. American International Group (AIG), which plunged to 32.66 early on, came roaring back by $7 to get up near 40 at 39.92, but pulled back to 37.95, still up 1.95 today on 99 million shares.

That was the only point-plus gainer our board.

Among other gainers, the Direxion Financial Bear 3x Shares (FAZ) gained 88 cents at 27.27, UltraShort Real Estate ProShares (SRS) up 46 cents to 13.10, the Direxion Small Cap 3x Bear (TZA) up 19 cents to 15.95, and the Direxion Large Cap Bear 3X Shares (BGZ) up 34 cents at 26.33. All of those are new model portfolio positions.

On the downside, Sinovac (SVA) took it on the chin today, down 1.93 to 8.53 on 22 Ã,½ million shares. The Direxion Financial Bull 3x Shares (FAS) tumbled further after yesterday’s sharp decline, losing another 2.28 to 65.82 on more than 35 million traded.

Stepping back and reviewing the hourly chart patterns, the indices were more volatile and choppy early on, and then settled into trading ranges before a late rollover brought them down to the lower end of the ranges for the day and down on the session. It certainly now looks like a new downtrend has begun, and today may have been confirmation of that.

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