The stock market indices suffered big losses today, and although a late rally did bring them back, they fell back again in the last 15-20 minutes to close not far off the session lows.

Net on the day, the Dow was down 242.12 at 11,613.30, with a low of 11,555, so about 70 points off its low. The S&P 500 was down 24.99 at 1256.88, about 7 points off its low, and the Nasdaq 100 was down 56.65 at 2202.97, about 14 points off its low.

Still, quite a negative day, and technicals confirmed it. Advance-declines were about 23 1/2 to 7 negative on the New York Stock Exchange, and 19 to 7 negative on Nasdaq. Up/down volume was 10 to 1 negative on New York with total volume of about 1.45 billion shares traded. Nasdaq traded more than 2.6 billion shares and had about a 7 to 1 negative ratio.

So, it was a decidedly negative day today. The indices had a strong 5-wave decline, followed by a rally back, but only to fall back again at the close.

TheTechTrader.com board was mostly lower, but there were quite a few gainers including the ultra-short ETFs. Those included the iPath S&P 500 VIX Short-Term Futures ETN (VXX) up 2.89 to 37.63, the Direxion Daily Financial Bear 3X Shares (FAZ) up 2.13 to 45.02, and the Direxion Daily Large Cap Bear 3X Shares (BGZ) up 2.11 to 42.09.

In addition, the Direxion Daily Small Cap Bear 3X Shares (TZA) jumped 1.31 to 44.31 and the Direxion Daily Emrg Mkts Bear 3X Shares (EDZ) 1.30 to 23.38.

Other gainers of note included Universal Display Corp. (PANL), which we traded today, up 7.28 to 45.46. Vera Bradley, Inc. (VRA) advanced 4.88 to 38.49, Ecology & Environment, Inc. (EEI) 3.58 to 18.70, and Accelr8 Technology Corp. (AXK) 1.33 to 4.00, a nearly 50% gain.

In the strong coal sector, James River Coal Co. (JRCC) rose 90 cents to 22.06, Peabody Energy Corp. (BTU) 2.55 to 67.68, and Patriot Coal Corporation (PCX) 39 cents to 23.32.

Lucas Energy, Inc. (LEI) gained 30 cents to 3.42, Orient Paper Inc. (ONP) 74 cents to 5.51, and Samson Oil & Gas Limited (SSN) 36 cents to 3.36, the latter two being junior oils that snapped back with the price of oil firming up today.

On the downside some of the major large-cap stocks suffered, with Apple Inc. (AAPL) down 15.42 to 330.01, International Business Machines Corp. (IBM) down 6.02 to 153.00, and Goldman Sachs (GS) 2.87 to 154.38.

In addition, Travelzoo Inc. (TZOO) dropped 1.67 to 44.77, SodaStream International Ltd. (SODA) 1.13 to 42.12, OmniVision Technologies Inc. (OVTI) 1.08 to 29.04, and Northern Oil and Gas, Inc. (NOG) 1.02 to 28.06.

Stepping back and reviewing the hourly chart patterns, the indices gapped down sharply, bounced, but then went sharply lower the rest of the session until about an hour to go when they rallied back sharply only to rollover again in the last 20-30 minutes.

So, a decidedly negative day. But now the indices are oversold and near key support, so we may very well see a rally off these levels. We’ll have to see how it goes tomorrow.

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