The stock market indices made their way to the downside today and got smacked hard. It was a very difficult session as the indices started out with a negative divergence as the Nasdaq 100 was up and the S&P 500 was down. That led to a very steep sell off and bounced midday. It did little to alleviate pressure as the indices kept stair-stepping their way down all day, and then rolled over hard into the close, closing near the session lows.

Net on the day, the Dow was down 279.65 at 12,290.14, the S&P 500 down 30.65 at 1314.55, and the Nasdaq 100 down 50.06 at 2322.48. That’s a loss of more than 2% on all the indices.

Advance-declines were 5 to 1 negative on the New York Stock Exchange and 5 1/2 to 1 negative on Nasdaq. Up/down volume was about 20 to 1 negative on New York with total volume of 1.13 billion shares down and 56 million up. Nasdaq traded 2.3 billion and had a 10 to 1 negative volume ratio.

TheTechTrader.com board, as a result, was mostly lower, but there were quite a few interesting sharp movers to the upside. Low-priced Akeena Solar, Inc. (WEST) doubled today, up 1.12 to 2.25. VirnetX Holding Corp (VHC) jumped 2.99 to 29.25, Orexigen Therapeutics, Inc. (OREX) 51 cents to 3.34, Daktronics Inc. (DAKT) 99 cents to 11.74, Melco Crown Entertainment Ltd. (MPEL) 59 cents to 11.81, and Fortinet Inc. (FTNT) 1.21 to 49.70.

In addition, Golar LNG Ltd. (GLNG) was up 1.45 to 33.31.

Ultra-short ETFs were the key to the action on our board today. They had a fabulous session, with the Direxion Daily Financial Bear 3X Shares (FAZ) up 4.00 to 46.02, the iPath S&P 500 VIX Short-Term Futures ETN (VXX) 1.34 at 22.63, the Direxion Daily Small Cap Bear 3X Shares (TZA) up 3.14 to 36.3, the Direxion Daily Large Cap Bear 3X Shares (BGZ) up 2.21 to 35.46, the ProShares UltraShort Silver (ZSL) 1.65 to 17.74, and the ProShares UltraShort DJ-UBS Crude Oil (SCO) 2.05 to 44.51.

On the downside, Travelzoo Inc. (TZOO) was down 4.98 to 70.16, Star Scientific, Inc. (CIGX) 99 cents to 4.22, Stratasys Inc. (SSYS) 1.58 to 33.62, Lexmark International Inc. (LXK) 1.37 to 28.41, 3D Systems Corporation (DDD) 98 cents to 19.01, Cree Inc. (CREE) 1.80 to 42.09, IDT Corporation (IDT) 51 cents to 28.99, and Quepasa Corp. (QPSA) 59 cents to 7.99.

Other losers of note included Goldman Sachs (GS) down 4.56 to 136.17, Apple Inc. (AAPL) 2.32 to 245.51, Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN) 4.29 to 192.40, Chipotle Mexican Grill, Inc. (CMG) 3.51 to 285.56, Molycorp, Inc. (MCP) 3.63 to 62.80, SodaStream International Ltd. (SODA) 1.75 to 56.36, International Business Machines Corp. (IBM) 2.37 to 166.56, OmniVision Technologies Inc. (OVTI) 1.34 to 33.97, Sequans Communications S.A. Ame (SQNS) 2.22 to 16.95, Ashland Inc. (ASH) 1.39 to 66.95, Fuel-Tech, Inc. (FTEK) 56 cents to 7.88, and SmartHeat Inc. (HEAT) 23 cents to 1.59.

Stepping back and reviewing the hourly chart patterns, the indices had a strong thrust to the downside today with technicals confirming. It was a very nasty slide, and perhaps the beginning of a downside thrust. We need to be very careful in this zone. Any move below the 1310 area on the S&P 500, which we’ll be testing probably tomorrow morning, should very quickly lead to a move down towards 1295, maybe even 1285. So keep your eyes peeled.

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