The stock market indices had a volatile and difficult day, and ended lower today. The day started out, however, with a gap to the upside. They ran hard to reach new rally highs at 2029.65 on the Nasdaq 100, but pulled back at the end of the day to below 2000.

Net of the day, the Dow, which got up to 10,948.88, closed at 10,788.05, down 47.23, about a 140-50 point reversal, not the best result today. The S&P 500 closed down 3.53 at 1141.20 after being as high as 1157.16, a new rally high there. The Nasdaq 100 lost 11.04 to 1998.04.

So, perhaps a reversal day. We’ll have to see how it goes. After the gap up in the morning, they sold off very sharply, dropping the NDX from nearly 2030 down to 1986, a 44-point pullback, and then they stair-stepped their way higher in a 3-wave rally back to 2013 before they pulled back in the last hour to close at 1998. So you can see a choppy day.

On the S&P 500 they gapped up, moving to 1157, but dropped all way back to 1136, 21 points, before stair-steppiing their way back to 1146, taking back almost half of the losses before a rollover at the end of the day brought them back to negative territory.

Technicals were mixed. Advance-declines were 15 to 14 positive on the New York Stock Exchange, and almost dead-even flat with a just slight negative edge on Nasdaq on advance-declines. However, up/down volume was 7 to 5 negative on New York with total volume of 1.25 billion traded. Nasdaq traded a hefty 2.42 billion shares today and had a 2 to 1 negative ratio as well.

On TheTechTrader.com board, as a result of all that gyration, the majority of the stocks were lower, but there were some gainers today. On the plus side, American International Group, Inc. (AIG) was up 1.65 to 39.10, BP Exploration plc (BP) 1.17 to 41.17, Trina Solar Ltd. (TSL) 1.30 to 30.18, and SYNNEX Corp. (SNX) 2.24 to 28.14.

Fractional gainers of note included VirnetX Holding Corp (VHC), one of our recent swing trade ideas, up 32 cents to 14.68, and ADTRAN Inc. (ADTN) 53 cents to 35.30.

In addition, Green Plains Renewable Energy, Inc. (GPRE) was up 35 cents to 12.17. Other than those there were very few small fractional gains today.

On the downside, point-plus losers included Cirrus Logic Inc. (CRUS) down 1.18 to 17.84, Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN) 1.93 to 157.06, Acme Packet, Inc. (APKT) 2.20 to 37.94, Apple Inc. (AAPL) 3.62 to 283.75, and LogMeIn, Inc. (LOGM) 1.45 to 35.98.

Stepping back and reviewing the hourly chart patterns, the indices were up sharply at the opening, down sharply to new session lows, and then had a 3-wave snapback rally from late morning to late afternoon before they rolled over again in the last hour and closed down on the day.

Still, it was a productive day for many stocks that we follow. We’ll have to see if this pattern that is developing, which appears to be potentially toppy, will bring any further downside damage over the next few days.

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