The stock market indices suffered slight losses today, but the path was a bit tedious. They opened lower, bounced, and had a 5-wave move after the bounce that took them to new sessions lows slightly under support. Those falling wedge patterns resulted in a snapback by mid-day, retesting the early session highs, but falling just a tad short. They rolled over in the afternoon, and especially hard in the last half hour, taking them back into the negative column.

Net on the day, the Dow closed down 16.80 at 10,303.15, the S&P 500 down 4.36 at 1079.25, and the Nasdaq 100 down 13.37 at 1818.80.

Advance/declines were about 16 to 13 negative on New York Stock Exchange, with about a 3 to 2 negative plurality of declining volume over advancing volume. Total volume was a paltry 860 million shares. The technicals were more negative on Nasdaq, by about an 18 to 8 ratio of declines over advances. Up/down volume was about 11 to 4 negative.

So, it was a much more decisively negative day on Nasdaq today. However, at the end of the day the indices closed at the session lows going away, which does not auger well for early next week as the patterns appear to be consolidation pauses before lower levels are achieved.

TheTechTrader.com board, as a result, was negative. Leading the way on the downside today was Google Inc. (GOOG) down 5.66 at 486.35, Goldman Sachs (GS) 1.34 at 148.08, Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN) 1.87 at 124.69, and Apple Inc. (AAPL) 2.69 at 249.10. Market leaders were certainly lower today.

Among other losers of note, Arena Pharmaceuticals (ARNA) was down 54 cents at 6.63, Dendreon Corp. (DNDN) 66 cents at 36.48, Isilon Systems, Inc. (ISLN) 79 cents at 16.08, Valassis Communications Inc. (VCI) 67 cents at 31.17, and Westport Innovations Inc. (WPRT) 39 cents at 17.62.

On the upside today, obviously ultra-shorts did well, but not as well as expected. The indices were not off that sharply, although the Direxion Daily Small Cap Bear 3X Shares (TZA) was up 1.23 at 37.65. The iPath S&P 500 VIX Short-Term Futures ETN (VXX) advanced 63 cents at 23.78.

Stepping back and reviewing the hourly chart patterns, the indices were down in the morning, up mid-day, rolled over hard in the afternoon, and closed at the session lows going away. A very negative close for the week.

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