The stock market indices started out the day with a strong surge, pulled back in an orderly fashion, and then made new highs by late morning. At that point they backed off and began a stair-step process over the next several hours only to accelerate and cascade lower in the last hour, sending the indices tumbling.

The last hour was particularly negative as the indices took out the afternoon lows and then took out yesterday’s late spike lows to new pullback lows for the entire decline. At this point, the S&P 500 has dropped from 1131 down to 1028, more than 100 points, while the Nasdaq 100 has dropped from 1940 down to under 1740, more than 200 points.

Indeed, getting oversold short-term here, as the indices also have reached the bottom of their declining channels.

Net on the day, the Dow was down 96.28 for the day at 9774.02, which was about 134 points off its high. The S&P 500 was down 10.53 at 1030.71, 18 points off its high, and the Nasdaq 100 down 24.92 at 1739.14, 37 points off its high.

Advance/declines on the New York Stock Exchange were 19 to 11 negative, and about 3 to 2 negative on Nasdaq.

TheTechTrader.com board, as a result, was mostly lower, but there were some outstanding stocks on the upside today. Leading the way to the downside, Google Inc. (GOOG) dropped another 9.31 at 444.95, Apple Inc. (AAPL) 4.64 at 251.53, and Netflix, Inc. (NFLX) 3.93 at 108.65. Goldman Sachs (GS) reached a new 52-week low, down 2.49 at 131.27, and Dendreon Corp. (DNDN) lost another 1.26 at 32.33.

Those were the point-plus losers on the board.

On the plus side, the ultra-short ETFs had an excellent day with the Direxion Daily Emrg Mkts Bear 3X Shares (EDZ) jumping from 46.80 to 50.27 before settling back to 49.80, up 1.08 today, but a big reversal there. The Direxion Daily Large Cap Bear 3X Shares (BGZ) closed up 57 cents at 18.25, the Direxion Daily Financial Bear 3X Shares (FAZ) 60 cents at 17.42, and the iPath S&P 500 VIX Short-Term Futures ETN (VXX) 41 cents at 31.20, about 1.75 off its low.

Other gainers of note, portfolio position Westport Innovations Inc. (WPRT) gained 29 cents at 15.69, although that was about 65 cents off its high. RINO International Corporation (RINO) jumped 28 cents at 12.51, portfolio position Pactiv Corp. (PTV) up 20 cents at 27.85, and FSI International Inc. (FSII) managed to gain 11 cents at 4.19.

One of the sole large-cap high tech stocks that was up today was Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN), which added 65 cents at 109.26.

Stepping back and reviewing the hourly chart patterns, the indices had a 3-wave rally back to the declining tops lines on the 5-minute charts only to rollover in a steady fashion in early afternoon and accelerate in the last hour to close near the session lows. Very negative day for the bulls, but a very strong session for the ultra-shorts and the bears.

We’ll see what additional follow-through we get to the downside. The indices are starting to get a little long in the tooth, as they say, on the downside with a negative tick of -1283 at one point today. It may have seen some sort of capitulation short-term low, but we’ll see what we get tomorrow.

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