The stock market indices had a down day to end the week. They suffered sharp losses in the morning, although they did bounce back in the afternoon part of the session to take back a chunk of the losses, especially on the Nasdaq 100. But the S&P 500 didn’t fare too well during the comeback and was only able to snapback 5 points, still ending down, just under 1200.

Net on the day, the Dow was down 90.52 at 11,192.58, the S&P 500 down 14.33 at 1199.21, and Nasdaq 100 suffered the biggest loss today percentage-wise, dropping about 1 1/2%, down 35.16 at 2137.95.

Technicals were quite negative today, confirming the decline by about 5 to 1 on declines over advances on the New York Stock Exchange and about 4 to 1 on Nasdaq. Up/down volume was 9 to 1 negative on New York with total volume of about 1 billion shares traded. Nasdaq traded nearly 2.25 billion shares traded, but had about a 4 1/2 to 1 negative plurality of declining volume over advancing volume.

As a result, most stocks on TheTechTrader.com board were down, but there were some gainers other than the ultra-shorts. Leading the way was Microsemi (MSCC) up 1.81 to 22.64, City Telecom HK Ltd. (CTEL) up 1.25 to 14.44, and Finisar Corp. (FNSR) 1.46 to 19.39.

In addition, Nvidia (NVDA) gained 65 cents to 13.26, and BSQUARE Corp. (BSQR) 33 cents to 4.43. Aastrom Biosciences, Inc. (ASTM), a swing pick of ours, closed near the highs for the week with a nice gain at 4.20, up 33 cents, and ZAGG Incorporated (ZAGG) recovered from recent sharp losses, up 56 cents to 7.72.

In addition, the ultra-short ETFs had a stellar day. Current swing trade pick Direxion Daily Emrg Mkts Bear 3X Shares (EDZ) was up 1.59 to 23.37. Other ultra-shorts included iPath S&P 500 VIX Short-Term Futures ETN (VXX) up 2.17 to 47.60, Direxion Daily Small Cap Bear 3X Shares (TZA) up 1.02 to 20.78, and Direxion Daily Financial Bear 3X Shares (FAZ) up 54 cents to 11.62.

On the downside, Apple Inc. (AAPL) got hammered for 8.63 to close at 308.03, but that was about 5 points off its low. Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN) was down 4.69 to 165.68, and Ebix Inc. (EBIX) 2.02 to 21.72.

Brigham Exploration Co. (BEXP) finally got some profit taking, down 1.27 at 24.36. Golden Minerals Company (AUMN) dropped 1.30 to 24.70, Goldman Sachs (GS) 1.88 to 165.83, Polypore International Inc. (PPO) 1.18 to 33.42, and Radware Ltd. (RDWR) 1.49 to 32.29.

Stepping back and reviewing the hourly chart patterns, the indices went down hard in a 5-wave decline after an early morning bounce, dropping the NDX from 2171 down to 2122. It was a nearly 50-point drop on the NDX at that point. They then snapped back to 2145 before backing off into the close near 2138. The SPX dropped from over 1210 down to under 1195 before snapping back to 1201, closing under 1200 at 1199 and change.

In any case, a negative week, the worst week since August for the indices. We’ll see if this leads to further downside, but certainly the pattern of the last few sessions suggest that the indices are in a strong pullback mode and may test deeper levels before their done.

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