The stock market indices had a significant turnaround Tuesday down session and plunged from the get-go with a big gap to the downside. A strong downside move early in the morning plunged the indices down to 1960 on the Nasdaq 100 and 1171 on the S&P 500 before bouncing, but then they made lower lows.

Those were the session lows on the NDX. They then bounced back and forth for what looked like potential head and shoulder bottom patterns, but the neckline resistance proved too much as they rolled over into the final hour. However, in the last 15 minutes they bounced off the lows to pare back the losses.

Net on the day, the Dow was down 225.06 at 10,926.77, the S&P 500 down a whopping 28.66 at 1173.60, and the Nasdaq 100 down 62.63 at 1968.97.

Advance-declines were 439 to 2667, about a 6 to 1 negative ratio on the New York Stock Exchange. Up/down volume was a whopping 16 to 1 negative ratio with total volume just under 1.6 billion on New York. Nasdaq had 405 issues up and 2343 down with a 5 1/2 to 1 negative ratio. The up/down volume on Nasdaq was about 11 to 1 negative as well with 2.7 billion on the downside and 235 million on the upside.

TheTechTrader.com board, as a result, was negative. It was a hugely negative day for the indices, and large-cap stocks, in particular, got hammered. Google (GOOG) fell 24.23 to 506.37, Baidu, Inc. (BIDU) 15.99 to 693.00, Amazon.com (AMZN) 7.66 to 129.83, and Apple (AAPL) 7.67 to 258.68.

Other losses of note: Dendreon (DNDN) gave back 2.54 to 52.89, and Cree Inc. (CREE) 3.83 to 71.72.

Other point-plus losers included Las Vegas Sands Corp. (LVS) down 1.78 to 23.87, RINO International (RINO) down 1.07 to 15.85, China Agritech (CAGC) off 1.57 to 14.60, and China Automotive (CAAS) 1.56 to 21.16 in a very weak Chinese sector today.

Acme Packet, Inc. (APKT) lost 1.13 to 26.32, American International Group (AIG) 1.29 to 38.25, Akamai Technologies Inc. (AKAM) 1.37 to 38.39, and TiVo Inc. (TIVO) 99 cents to 17.14 among other important losers on our board today.

On the plus side, ultra-shorts had a whopping day with the Direxion Daily Emerging Markets Bear 3x (EDZ) up 5.71 to 47.49, the iPath S&P 500 VIX Short-Term Futures ETN (VXX) up 2.04 to 22.37, and the UltraShort Real Estate ProShares (SRS) up 1.12 to 25.37 leading the way.

Also ahead sharply was Direxion Daily Large Cap Bear 3x (BGZ), up 89 cents to 13.46, and the Direxion Daily Financial Bear 3x (FAZ), up 87 cents to 12.52. The Direxion Daily Small Cap Bear 3x (TZA) also advanced 49 cents to 6.03 as did the Direxion Daily Real Estate Bear 3X Shrs (DRV) up 38 cents to 6.54.

Stepping back and reviewing the hourly chart patterns, despite the afternoon consolidation the indices had a definitive down day that broke key price moving average and trendline support over the last two sessions, and we appear to have completed head-and-shoulder top formations on both the Nasdaq 100 and S&P 500. Although snapbacks may occur to test those breakdown points near the 1990-95 area on the NDX and the 1180-85 area on the SPX, the indices appear to be headed lower and we’ll see what kind of downside follow-through we’ll get over the next few days.

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