The stock market indices had a negative day and sharply so in most sectors. The morning saw a very sharp drop on negative consumer confidence index readings. The indices then bounced mid-morning, but then plunged mid-day to reach the session lows. The rest of the afternoon was spent working their way higher back up to test key overhead resistance, but they failed right at 1800 on the Nasdaq 100 and 1100 on the S&P 500. They then rolled over into the close with the SPX closing just a couple points off its session low.

Net on the day the Dow was down 100.97 at 10,282.41, the S&P 500 down 13.41 at 1094.60, and the Nasdaq 100 down 23.81 at 1793.82. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index (SOXX) got hammered for nearly 3 percent today, down 9.68 at 332.87.

Advance-declines were 21 to 9 negative on New York Stock Exchange and about 2 to 1 negative on Nasdaq. Up/down volume was the story today, about 7 to 1 negative on the New York with total volume just under 1.1 billion, while Nasdaq traded about 2.25 billion and had about a 4.5 to 1 negative ratio.

TheTechTrader.com board was pretty much all negative today, other than the ultrashort ETFs. However, there were a couple outstanding gainers we traded today. InfoLogix (IFLG) jumped to 10.84 at one point, up more than 5, but settled back to 8.55, up 2.83. Cimatron Ltd. (CIMT) leapt 1.51 to close at 2.71,up 123% today, trading as high as 3.58.

Among other gainers, portfolio position Somaxon Pharmaceuticals (SOMX) advanced 23 cents to 3.40, while China Automotive (CAAS) gained 97 cents to 20.30, and Acme Packet, Inc. (APKT) 30 cents to 15.38.

Other than that on the stock equity side there were very few stocks on our board up more than a fraction.

Ultrashort ETFs did very well today. The Direxion Daily Financial Bear 3x (FAZ) jumped 80 cents to 18.65, the Direxion Daily Small Cap Bear 3x (TZA) 32 cents to 9.39, the Direxion Daily Emerging Markets Bear 3x (EDZ) 37 cents to 5.79 and the Direxion Daily Large Cap Bear 3x (BGZ) 64 cents to 17.35.

On the downside the Direxion Financial Bull 3x Shares (FAS) lost 3.47 to 71.37, the Direxion Large Cap Bull 3X Shares (BGU) 1.87 to 49.78, the USO 70 cents to 38.33, as oil backed off today.

Stepping back and reviewing the hourly chart patterns, the steep plunge in the morning broke the key moving averages and price support on the hourly patterns before an afternoon bounce brought them back somewhat. However, a late sell-off closed the SPX just a couple points from its low for the day and we’ll have to see whether we get any downside follow through, but certainly there’s a possibility that we topped out here and are headed lower for a bit.

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