The stock market indices ended the day on a sour note, slightly in the negative column, but spent the day vacillating. The day started out with a move down to new lows on the Nasdaq 100; however, the S&P 500 did not confirm that. When that occurred, they staged a strong snapback rally, but could not quite get above the late Friday afternoon’s highs, then pulled back in an orderly fashion over the next couple hours. With a couple hours to go, the indices bounced back up to the declining tops line, but couldn’t get through, and rolled over the last hour or so, pulling back to close near the afternoon lows.

Net on the day, the Dow was down just 5.29 today at 10,138.52, the S&P 500 was down 2.19 at 1074.57, and the Nasdaq 100 down 2.52 at 1836.00.

Advance/declines were 14 to 11 positive on New York Stock Exchange and just 16 to 15 positive on Nasdaq. Up/down volume was slightly positive as well.

TheTechTrader.com board, as a result, was mixed; however, there were several point-plus gainers. Leading the way, Apple Inc. (AAPL) was up 1.60 at 268.30, OmniVision Technologies Inc. (OVTI) 1.35 at 23.96, Radcom Ltd. (RDCM) 1.01 at 5.13, and IDT Corporation (IDT) 1.58 at 11.37.

Other gainers of note included IDT Corporation (IDT) up 1.58 at 11.37, Intellicheck Mobilisa, Inc. (IDN) up 90 cents at 2.10, Orexigen Therapeutics, Inc. (OREX) 75 cents at 4.90, and Energy Recovery, Inc. (ERII) 68 cents at 4.48.

Fractional gainers of note: Dendreon Corp. (DNDN) up 15 cents at 37.15, Cree Inc. (CREE) 42 cents at 64.64, Tibco Software Inc. (TIBX) up only 4 cents at 12.60, and SYNNEX Corp. (SNX) 36 cents at 26.94,

On the downside, Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN) was down 3.20 at 117.80, Goldman Sachs (GS) down 3.00 at 136.66, Baidu, Inc. (BIDU) 1.66 at 74.44, and Las Vegas Sands Corp. (LVS) 1.16 at 25.35.

In addition, Google Inc. (GOOG) dropped 60 cents at 472.08, Acme Packet, Inc. (APKT) 54 cents at 28.84, Spreadtrum Communications Inc. (SPRD) 51 cents at 9.10, Xyratex Ltd. (XRTX) 36 cents at 15.01, and Ariba (ARBA) 57 cents at 17.17.

Utra-short ETF gainers today were the Direxion Daily Emrg Mkts Bear 3X Shares (EDZ) up 96 cents at 43.61, the Direxion Daily Financial Bear 3X Shares (FAZ) up 42 cents at 15.23, the Direxion Daily Large Cap Bear 3X Shares (BGZ) 20 cents at 16.17, and iPath S&P 500 VIX Short-Term Futures ETN (VXX) 46 cents at 28.18.

Stepping back and reviewing the hourly chart patterns, the indices were down early, rallied to late morning, then pulled back in the early afternoon. They bounced mid-afternoon, rolled over at the end of the day, kind of choppy, but closed near the afternoon session lows to end disappointingly negative on the day after being in the plus column for much of the morning and early afternoon.

In any case, the downtrend is still intact, and unless they can reverse this and take out overhead resistance, the indices have a chance of extending to the downside.

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