The stock market indices had a down day, but came way back in the last couple hours to shave a big chunk off the losses. The day started out with a big gap to the downside, bounced, and then went sharply lower in the morning, reaching the session lows literally in the first 45 minutes.

They then bounced around for several hours, forming what looked like wedges. But those wedges broke to the upside, not the downside, and that triggered short covering, which spurred the markets on. The Nasdaq 100 recovered, at that point, from 2122 up to 2151, and the S&P 500 from 1176 to 1190. In the last 10 minutes they did back off just a tad.

Net on the day, the Dow closed down 39.51 at 11,052.49, about 70 points off the session low. The S&P 500 was down 1.64 at 1187.76, about 14 points off its low, and the Nasdaq 100 down 9.35 at 2144.56, about 26 points off its low.

So, they did have a big comeback for the day.

Advance-declines managed to work their way back, but were still negative by 3 to 2 on the New York Stock Exchange, and by 14 1/2 to 12 on Nasdaq. Up/down volume was just slightly negative on New York on total volume of a light 900 million shares. Nasdaq had about a 3 to 2 negative plurality with total volume of about 1 2/3 billion shares.

TheTechTrader.com board was mixed, but there were some pleasant surprises to the upside today. Leading the way was Camelot Information Systems Inc. (CIS), up 2.37 to 21.14. Cree Inc. (CREE) jumped 1.99 to 65.12, Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN) 2.29 to 179.49, Apple Inc. (AAPL) 1.87 to 316.87, and Goldman Sachs (GS) 1.06 to 159.28.

On the downside, Coinstar Inc. (CSTR) lost 1.15 to 65.57, Cyberonics Inc. (CYBX) 1.23 to 27.65, and Acme Packet, Inc. (APKT) 1.33 to 44.48.

Those were the only point-plus losers on our board today.

Stepping back and reviewing the hourly chart patterns, the indices gapped down, bounced, went sharply lower, hit their session lows early, and then consolidated for several hours before taking off in the afternoon. They reached all the way back into the opening gaps before backing off late in the session.

So, it was a down day to start the week, but certainly could have been a lot worse.

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