The indices did run into some profit-taking on Friday, but after the strong week we had it’s understandable.

The day started out with a slightly move up at the get-go with a challenge three separate times near 1690 on the NDX and 1048 area SPX, but failed to break through. Then they rolled over hard by mid-morning and early afternoon, held secondary support and 4-day trendline support, and then did a 5-wave retracement rally that looked corrective, and in the last 10 minutes backed off.

Net on the day the Dow was down 22.07 at 9605.41, the S&P 500 down 1.41 at 1042.73, and the Nasdaq 100 down just 0.70 to 1685.46.

Certainly not a bad day in what I would call a gentle retracement.

Advance-declines despite that were positive by 345 issues on New York, but negative by nearly 500 issues on Nasdaq. Up/down volume was about 6 to 5 negative on New York on total volume of about 1 1/2 billion. Nasdaq traded about 2.3 billion and had a nearly dead-even flat volume ratio.

TheTechTrader.com board was narrowly changed, and not one stock was up or down as much as a point, although a couple ETFs backed off more than a dollar.

The Direxion Financial Bull 3x Shares (FAS) lost 1.26 at 76.68 and the U.S. Oil Fund ETF (USO) 1.55 at 35.82 on lower oil today.

Junior biotechs were generally weak after a firm opening. Vanda Pharmaceuticals (VNDA) backed off 95 cents at 14.26, Vivus (VVUS) 85 cents at 11.06, Orexigen Therapeutics (OREX) 43 cents at 8.96, and Jazz Pharmaceuticals (JAZZ) 83 cents at 9.16. Human Genome Sciences (HGSI) fell 49 cents at 9.22.

On the plus side, portfolio position China TransInfo (CTFO) advanced 78 cents to 8.62, DryShips (DRYS) 33 cents to 6.76 on 44 million shares, newly added portfolio position EDAP (EDAP) 56 cents to 4.47 on 4.9 million, and portfolio position Sinovac (SVA) 22 cents to 9.71 on nearly 10 million traded.

Stepping back and reviewing the hourly chart patterns, the day saw back-and-fill choppy action in the morning that failed to break through the early highs, resulting in a mid-session rollover, but a 5-wave countertrend rally in the afternoon brought the indices back from much deeper levels, still closing down on the day.

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