The stock market indices had a pretty nasty session, particularly on Nasdaq today. Nasdaq gapped down, rallied in a bear flag motion, and then plunged the rest of the day in a stair-step fashion. The S&P 500 rallied more sharply in the morning, and then rolled over as well, as the NDX dragged it down.

Net on the day, the Dow was down 47.38 at 12,548.37, the S&P 500 down 8.30 at 1329.47, and the big loser today, the Nasdaq 100, was down 41.39 at 2337.85.

Advance-declines were better than 2 1/2 to 1 negative on the New York Stock Exchange and about 4 to 1 negative on Nasdaq. Up/down volume was 2 to 1 negative on New York as well with total volume of about 890 million shares. Nasdaq traded just over 2 billion shares and had a 4 to 1 negative ratio.

TheTechTrader.com had a very negative day today. Large-cap stocks across the board were quite negative. On the downside, leading the way were Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN) down 10.05 to 192.51, Apple Inc. (AAPL) down more than 7.00, down 7.20 to 333.30, and several others were down multiple points as well.

Molycorp, Inc. (MCP) lost 4.63 to 57.52, and Rediff.com India Ltd. (REDF) got hammered for 2.55 to 9.95. It was a very nasty day there.

Other multiple point-plus losers included Dendreon Corp. (DNDN) down 1.17 to 36.86, IDT Corporation (IDT) down 1.51 to 26.41, Rackspace Hosting, Inc (RAX) 1.50 to 40.70, SodaStream International Ltd. (SODA) 1.46 to 43.28, and Ultratech, Inc. (UTEK) 1.69 to 31.85.

On the plus side, the ultra-short ETFs had a big day. ProShares UltraShort DJ-UBS Crude Oil (SCO) was up 2.10 to 47.46, and ProShares UltraShort Silver (ZSL) jumped 1.76 to 21.46.

Other gainers of note included a few smaller stocks. Top Image Systems Ltd. (TISA) was up 86 cents to 2.91 for a nice percentage gain there, and ARCA biopharma, Inc. (ABIO) gained 33 cents to 2.84.

Two telecoms from China did well. Telestone Technologies Corp. (TSTC) rose 79 cents to 7.75, and China Techfaith Wireless Communication Technology Limited (CNTF) 33 cents to 6.14.

Stepping back and reviewing the hourly chart patterns, the indices were down and dirty all day on Nasdaq. The S&P 500 did have a nice rally in the morning, but rolled over hard. Only in the last 10 minutes did they bounce to prevent them from closing at the session lows today.

It was a very nasty day. The S&P 500 got down to key support around 1328, and then bounced late in the session. It’s looking awfully dire out there for the indices.

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