The stock market indices started off the week in a down note, but a decent afternoon rally snapback took back a big chunk of the losses and saved the indices from a deeper loss.

They started out the day with a move down. They bounced, and then made lower lows, with the S&P 500 making new lows for the entire move, although the Nasdaq 100 did not confirm that. They then rallied back in a 5-wave advance that closed near the afternoon highs, but still well down on the day.

Net on the day, the Dow was down 51.24 at 11,993.16. At one point the Dow was more than 100 points lower than that. The S&P 500 was down 7.89 at 1296.39, 5 points off its high, but 10 points off its low. The Nasdaq 100 fell 8.52 to 2290.74, 16 points off its low. So, you can see that they come back.

Advance-declines were better than 2 to 1 negative on the New York Stock Exchange, and 2 1/2 to 1 negative on Nasdaq. Up/down volume was 2 1/2 to 1 negative on New York with total volume of only 945 million shares traded. Nasdaq traded 1.8 billion shares and had a 2 to 1 negative volume ratio.

TheTechTrader.com board was mixed, but there were quite a few point-plus losers as well. On the plus side, Gulfport Energy Corp. (GPOR) was up 3.47 to 28.84, Cheniere Energy, Inc. (LNG) up 1.03 to 8.28, Trina Solar Ltd. (TSL) 1.77 to 26.00, Power-One Inc. (PWER) 93 cents to 8.20, MEMC Electronic Materials Inc. (WFR) 1.35 to 13.37, Tesoro Corporation (TSO) 1.47 to 25.98, Emergent BioSolutions, Inc. (EBS) 1.32 to 24.15, Golar LNG Ltd. (GLNG) 1.68 to 20.32, and Sycamore Networks Inc. (SCMR) 1.30 to 22.05.

Ultra-short ETF Direxion Daily Financial Bear 3X Shares (FAZ) was up 1.01 to 41.36, although it traded 1.00 higher earlier in the day.

On the downside, Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN) lost 1.34 to 166.73, Goldman Sachs (GS) 2.25 to 158.43, and International Business Machines Corp. (IBM) 1.04 to 161.39.

Low-priced KV Pharmaceutical Co. (KV-A) was down 1.67 to 10.32. Molycorp, Inc. (MCP) dropped 1.12 to 45.70, and Spreadtrum Communications Inc. (SPRD) gave back 1.41 to 18.73.

Stepping back and reviewing the hourly chart patterns, the indices were down in the morning, up in the afternoon, but were not able to recapture all of the losses and ended the day on somewhat of a down note.

We'll see if there is any follow-through tomorrow.

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