The stock market indices had a nasty afternoon reversal and closed near the session lows going away in reversing rally gains that were completely wiped out in the last couple hours.

The day started out with a move down, but the indices held support,and then rallied to resistance, backed off and retested successfully on the Nasdaq 100. The S&P 500 made a higher low, and then they rallied smartly mid-afternoon to get to new session highs just under 2290 on the NDX and right at the 1296 resistance area on the S&P 500. At that point they rolled over and began a hard sell-off, taking the NDX from 2289 to 2268 and the S&P 500 from 1296 to 1284 and change.

Net on the day, the Dow was down 19.15 at 12,070.81, 108 points off its high. The S&P 500 was down 1.23 at 1284.94, 12 points off its high, and the Nasdaq 100 down 5.52 at 2268.96, 20 points off its high.

Advance-declines were 17 to 13 positive on the New York Stock Exchange, remaining in the positive column but coming way off after being almost 3 to 1 positive earlier. Up/down volume just edged to the positive side on total volume of 915 million. Nasdaq traded nearly 1.85 billion and had about a 14 to 11 positive plurality on advances over declines.

TheTechTrader.com board was mixed with a vast majority of the stocks slightly higher but way off their highs. Leading the way on a percentage basis was FriendFinder Networks Inc. (FFN), up 98 cents to 5.98, or 19.6%. OmniVision Technologies Inc. (OVTI) jumped 2.28 to 34.04, after announcing a contract with Apple (AAPL) to provide sensors for the iPhone 5.

Among other gainers of note, Golar LNG Ltd. (GLNG) jumped 1.19 to 32.19, Cardiovascular Systems Inc. (CSII) 1.04 to 13.86, and SodaStream International Ltd. (SODA) 3.69 to 61.07, making new all time highs in the face of this declining market.

In addition, Nanometrics Incorporated (NANO) advanced 89 cents to 16.59, Keynote Systems Inc. (KEYN) 52 cents to 19.66. Skyworks Solutions Inc. (SWKS) 1.80 to 25.08, Zale Corporation (ZLC) 32 cents to 6.67, Mitcham Industries Inc. (MIND) 73 cents to 15.22, Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN) 1.86 to 187.55, and Molycorp, Inc. (MCP) 78 cents to 58.70.

Many other stocks on our board were fractionally changed today, although sharply higher early in the morning.

On the downside, Apple Inc. (AAPL) lost 6.00 to 332.04, and International Business Machines Corp. (IBM) dropped 1.06 to 163.69.

Stepping back and reviewing the hourly chart patterns, the indices were up, came down early, and then rallied. They came back down midday and rallied to new highs for the day, but could not extend, and rolled over hard into the close to finish with losses for the day.

A very negative day for the bulls.

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