The stock market indices had a difficult session today and were down for most of the session. In the last hour they had a sharp rally back off of key support, perhaps due to short covering, which prevented the indices from much deeper losses. In fact, the Dow was able to crawl its way back into the positive column.

The day started out with a move down. A sharp snapback failed, and the indices rolled over to new lows and then rallied back one more time making lower lows on both indices. However, the S&P 500 retested its highs with the Nasdaq 100 falling short. At that point they started a strong multi-hour decline that broke through key levels of support and reached 2377 on the NDX and 1349.52 on the S&P 500, right near key secondary support, which triggered a snapback rally.

Net on the day, the Dow was up 0.15 at 12,807.51. The S&P 500 was down 4.60 at 1356.62, 7 points off its low, and the Nasdaq 100 down 11.44 at 2392.80, 15 points off its low.

Advance-declines were nearly 2 to 1 negative on the New York Stock Exchange and 9 to 4 negative on Nasdaq. Up/down volume was a little better than 2 to 1 negative on New York with total volume of just under 1 billion. Nasdaq traded 2 1/4 billion shares and had a 13 to 9 negative volume ratio.

TheTechTrader.com board, for the most part, was lower, with quite a few negative losers today. On the plus side, however, Molycorp, Inc. (MCP) jumped 6.02 to 77.54. Avalon Rare Metals Inc. (AVL) was up a fraction, 35 cents, to 9.18 in that group, although it traded higher during the day. Rare Element Resources Ltd. (REE) gained 40 cents to 14.25, trading as high as 14.89 earlier.

Among other stocks of note, Cognex Corporation (CGNX) was up 5.14 to 36.19 today on strong earnings, Avon Products Inc. (AVP) jumped 1.34 to 30.91, and BioScrip Inc. (BIOS) had a big percentage gain, up 1.43 to 5.95, or 31.6%. Merge Healthcare Incorporated. (MRGE) advanced 98 cents to 5.74, VIVUS Inc. (VVUS) 52 cents to 8.32, Advanced Energy Industries, Inc. (AEIS) 1.34 to 14.85, and Kulicke & Soffa Industries Inc. (KLIC) 1.17 to 10.20.

In addition, Hercules Offshore, Inc. (HERO) was up 44 cents to 6.41, GTX Inc. (GTXI) 23 cents to 4.98, and Boyd Gaming Corp. (BYD) 61 cents to 9.53.

Ultra-short ETF Direxion Daily Small Cap Bear 3X Shares (TZA) was up 1.20 to 34.49, and the Direxion Daily Emrg Mkts Bear 3X Shares (EDZ) gained 1.06 to 17.25.

On the downside, leading the way lower was Chipotle Mexican Grill, Inc. (CMG), down 6.67 to 260.41. Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN) lost 2.74 to 198.45, Dendreon Corp. (DNDN) 1.75 to 41.06, IntraLinks Holdings, Inc. (IL) 1.62 to 29.01, LSB Industries Inc. (LXU) 1.97 to 37.26, and Rackspace Hosting, Inc (RAX) 2.01 to 42.41.

In addition, Rediff.com India Ltd. (REDF) got hammered back another 1.21 to 13.01. RealPage, Inc. (RP) dropped 1.37 to 29.60. Travelzoo Inc. (TZOO) lost another 2.14 to 75.56, along with Ultratech, Inc. (UTEK) down 1.16 to 29.61, Velti Plc (VELT) 1.34 to 16.91, and VirnetX Holding Corp (VHC) 1.77 to 23.06.

Stepping back and reviewing the hourly chart patterns, the indices stair-stepped their way lower, and then had a sharp, midday decline followed by a last 90-minute snapback rally that brought the indices substantially off the lows after testing secondary key support and holding there.

We’ll see if that was meaningful or not, but certainly the back of the recent rally appears to have been broken, and we may continue lower here. We’ll have to see what kind of resiliency the bulls have here.

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