The stock market indices had an afternoon sell off, which put them in negative territory as the Tuesday turnaround effect took place, but the rally did reach new snapback rally highs up near the 1966 1/2 level on the NDX and the 1170 1/2 area on the S&P 500.

The day started out with a gap down, they recovered very quickly and rallied steadily, but not too sharply until early afternoon when they reached those previously mentioned levels.

During the afternoon portion they sold off steadily in a similar manner as they rose to test key support and closed at the end of the session despite a bounce during the last half hour. However, the last 15 minutes they pulled back to the afternoon lows and closed with losses.

Net on the day, the Dow was down to 36.88 at 10,748.26, the S&P 500 down 3.94 at 1155.79, and Nasdaq 100 off 2.13 at 940.48.

Advance-declines were still positive by about 17 to 13 on the New York Stock Exchange and about 3 to 2 positive on Nasdaq. Up/down volume was negative on New York by about 4 to 3, and volume was much lighter at 1.4 billion. Nasdaq was also negative by a much lesser ratio of 13 to 11 on total volume of just under 2 1/2 billion.

TheTechTrader.com board, as a result, was very mixed. On the upside, however, leading the way was Baidu, Inc. (BIDU), which advanced 19.39 at 714.17. Dendreon (DNDN) jumped 2.68 to 46.50. Zoltek Companies (ZOLT) had a big day today, at 10.46 up 1.27, and American International Group (AIG) gained 1.91 to 42.89. Apple (AAPL) rose 2.53 to 256.52.

In addition, the ultra-short ETF Direxion Daily Emerging Markets Bear 3x (EDZ) jumped 2.10 to 45.51.

Among the fractional gainers, Keryx Biopharmaceuticals (KERX) advanced 44 cents to 6.14. Houston American Energy Corp. (HUSA) rose 60 cents to 11.91, Mindspeed Technologies (MSPD) 55 cents to 9.90, and Northern Oil and Gas, Inc. (NOG) 30 cents to 15.59 in a strong junior oil sector. RINO International (RINO) jumped 53 cents to 15.

On the downside, point-plus losers included Cree Inc. (CREE), which lost 1.38 to 71.34. Goldman Sachs Group (GS) gave back 1.86 to 141.97, and Google (GOOG) 12.60 to 509.05.

Other losers of note: China Automotive (CAAS) dropped 57 cents to 20.05, China Agritech (CAGC) 60 cents to14.01, and Origin Agritech (SEED) 25 cents to 8.15, in a weaker Chinese sector. ARCA Biopharma Inc. (ABIO) dropped 31 cents to 4.58.

Stepping back and reviewing the hourly chart patterns, the indices were down early, rallied sharply until mid-afternoon, then rolled over to test support, taking back a big chunk of the gains and putting the indices back in the loss column.