Friday ended with a real negative thud as the indices made a decisive downside thrust, perhaps breaking the back of the current trend. We’ll see what kind of downside follow-through we get.

The stock market indices started out with a gap down, a sharp move lower, but then a quick pop to the upside, which failed at resistance. At that point it was revealed that Goldman Sachs Group (GS) is being investigated by the SEC for fraud, and the market sold off very sharply, with the Nasdaq 100 dropping from 2038 to 2000 inside of a couple hours. The S&P 500 dropped at that point from about 1209 down to 1187.

By mid-day they bounced, backed off, retested, and then made higher highs, but were unable to get through overhead resistance currently at the 2019-20 zone on the NDX and at the 1197 area on the SPX.

In the last hour they backed and filled, and then sold off in the last 15 minutes to end near the afternoon lows on the indices.

Net on the day, the Dow closed down 125.91 at 11,018.66, the S&P 500 down 19.54 at 1192.13, and the Nasdaq 100 down 25.80 to 2012.84.

Advance-declines were nearly 5 to 1 negative on New York Stock Exchange and 2 1/2 to 1 negative on Nasdaq.

TheTechTrader.com board, as a result, was nearly all negative. The point-plus losers were limited to China Agritech (CAGC) at 17.94 down 1.24, and JAZZ Pharmaceuticals (JAZZ) at 10.55 down 1.01.

On the upside, the only point-plus gainer was the Direxion Daily Financial Bear 3x (FAZ) up 1.14 to 12.18. The Direxion Daily Large Cap Bear 3x (BGZ) advanced 60 cents to 13.05.

The only small fractional gainer was the Direxion Daily Real Estate Bear 3X Shares (DRV) at 8.43 up 55 cents.

Stepping back and reviewing the hourly chart patterns, the indices plunged in the morning, tried to recover in the afternoon, but rolled back near the close and had a very negative close for the week. We’ll see how significant that is and whether they can penetrate below 2000 on the NDX and take out the 1185-86 area, which is current support on the SPX.

So a critical time ahead of us. We’ll see if this reversal today was meaningful or not, and we’ll know more certainly next week.

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