The stock market indices definitely had a turnaround Tuesday. After huge down gaps smacked the indices sharply lower at the opening, they then followed up in the next 10-15 minutes at even lower levels, reaching down near 1040 on the S&P 500 for new pullback lows and down around the 1756 level on the Nasdaq 100.

At that point a 5-wave rally ensued. The indices snapped back to resistance, pulled back midday, but in an orderly fashion, and held support. At that point they started the strongest rally of the day, running from 1778 to 1818 on the NDX and from 1051 to almost 1075 on the SPX in the last couple hours to close not far from session highs, an incredible rally back.

Net on the day, the Dow rallied back 270 points from its low, but still ended up down 22.82 at on the day at 10,043.75. The S&P 500 closed up 38 cents at 1074.03, and the Nasdaq 100 closed up 40 cents to 1815.68 after dropping nearly 60 points.

Advance-declines did not get anywhere near flat, closing at 3 to 2 on decliners over advancers on the New York Stock Exchange and 2 to 1 on Nasdaq. Up/down volume, however, did move to the plus column by 9 to 8 on New York on total volume of 1 3/4 billion. Nasdaq was negative by 4 to 3 on total volume of 2.8 billion.

TheTechTrader.com board, as a result, had some very big snapback moves. Leading the way today was Goldman Sachs (GS), which jumped 11.00 off its low and closed up 5.87 on the day to 142.56 on 21.3 million. Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN) jumped 2.74 at 124.86, 6 points off its low. Apple Inc. (AAPL) was still down 1.54 today, closing at 245.22, but 8.00 off its low.

Stocks that did manage to get back in the plus column included Brigham Exploration Co. (BEXP), which jumped 1.60 off its low and closed up 57 cents on the day at 15.44 on 6.7 million. Acme Packet, Inc. (APKT) advanced nearly 3.00 from its low, closing up 36 cents at 26.69. Delcath Systems Inc. (DCTH) had a big day today, closing nearly 2.00 off its low, up 56 cents for the day at 15.13. Las Vegas Sands Corp. (LVS) went from 19.51 to 21.45, closing at 21.37 right near the high, up 48 cents. There were just a few other fractional gainers.

The Direxion Daily Emrg Mkts Bear 3X Shares (EDZ) ultra-short ETF, despite the market being down today, managed to close up 1.89 to 58.81. However, it had a high of over 65 today, so it closed more than 6 points off its high. The iPath S&P 500 VIX Short-Term Futures ETN (VXX) had a big negative reversal when it slid from 36.10 to 31.65 and closed a penny off its low at 31.66, down 1.46. The Direxion Daily Financial Bear 3X Shares (FAZ) went from 17.98 to 15.96, closing at 16 even, down 34 cents on more than 100 million shares today.

In addition, Baidu, Inc. (BIDU) dropped 1.93 to 69.08.

Stepping back and reviewing the hourly chart patterns, the indices had huge opening gaps to the downside today and reached new 2-week pullback lows. However, they managed to snapback sharply and close in the plus column on the SPX and NDX, and slightly down on the Dow, but it was quite a comeback today. We’ll see if there’s any upside follow-through tomorrow or whether the levels at which they closed -- the declining topslines and moving averages on the hourly charts -- prove to be futile levels. We’ll see how it goes tomorrow.

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