The stock market indices suffered another down day today, and were particularly weak on Nasdaq. The indices opened with a gap down, bounced back sharply, and then hit higher highs midday on the S&P 500, but couldn’t on the Nasdaq 100. They pulled back in the afternoon, backed and filled, but in the last 20 minutes sold off to close near the support lows intraday.

Net on the day, the Dow was down 46.47 at 11,006.02, barely holding 11,000 today, and about 65 points off its low. The S&P 500 was down 7.21 at 1180.55, closing 6 points off its low. The Nasdaq 100 was down 27.23 at 2117.33, about 10 points off its low.

Advance-declines were 2 to 1 negative on the New York Stock Exchange, and about the same on Nasdaq. Up/down volume was about 9 to 5 negative on New York on total volume of 1.5 billion shares. Nasdaq traded about 2.2 billion, with up/down volume 3 to 1 negative. So, volume was heavier today.

TheTechTrader.com board had some large gainers as well as losers today. Leading the way on the upside was Acme Packet, Inc. (APKT) up 4.50 to 48.98. Travelzoo Inc. (TZOO) gained 4.00 to 42.99, REALD INC. (RLD) 2.10 to 28.53, and Scientific Games Corporation (SGMS) 1.33 to 8.06, a 20% gain there.

Other gainers of note included Camelot Information Systems Inc. (CIS) up 2.37 to 21.14, and swing trade pick Almaden Minerals Ltd. (AAU) up 70 cents to 4.49, or almost 19%. STEC, Inc. (STEC), issued as a swing trade pick today, was up 70 cents to 17.00. Alexco Resource Corporation (AXU) jumped 45 cents to 7.40 in a firm gold sector. Broadwind Energy, Inc. (BWEN) advanced 20 cents to 1.91, EntreMed Inc. (ENMD) 45 cents to 7.20, Hecla Mining (HL) 43 cents to 9.60, L & L Energy, Inc. (LLEN) 57 cents to 10.57, and Puda Coal (PUDA) 42 cents to 13.89 in a firm coal group today.

In addition, Diana Shipping Inc. (DSX) was up 83 cents to 13.46, Huntsman Corporation (HUN) 82 cents to 15.44, International Tower Hill Mines Ltd. (THM) 75 cents to 9.62, and RiT Technologies Ltd. (RITT) 86 cents to 10.50.

On the downside, SodaStream International Ltd. (SODA) got slammed after earnings, down 8.55 to 32.95, closing more than 10 points off its morning high. Apple Inc. (AAPL) dropped 5.72 to 311.15, Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN) 4.09 to 175.40, and Goldman Sachs (GS) 2.79 to 156.14. Google Inc. (GOOG) also got hammered today, down 26.44 to 555.67.

Stepping back and reviewing the hourly chart patterns, the indices were down sharply at the opening again, snapped back and took back more than half the losses but couldn’t recover completely, and then backed and filled the rest of the day with the S&P 500 acting a little stronger than the NDX today.

Overall, it was rather a negative way to close a session. The down trend that began more than a week ago still continues as the declining tops line thwarted three separate rallies today on the S&P 500.

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