The stock market indices suffered steep losses today with big down gaps at the opening and a very sharp sell-off in the morning. They reached below 2380 on the Nasdaq 100 and 1311 on the S&P 500 before a snapback attempt reached back to 2400 on the NDX and 1320 S&P 500. From there on they stair-stepped lower all day, and closed down nearly 200 on the Dow.

Net on the day, the Dow was down 198.75 at 12,302.55, the S&P 500 down a whopping 27.05, or 2%, at 1304.89, and the Nasdaq 100 down 62.29, nearly 3%, at 2367.16.

Advance-declines were extremely negatively to the downside with nearly 2800 issues down and just 258 up on the New York Stock Exchange. Up/down volume was 18 to 1 negative with only 60 million shares on the upside on New York and a billion to the downside.

It was similar for Nasdaq at 7 to 1 negative on declines over advances. Up volume was 150 million, with downside volume at 2.2 billion -- vextreme ratios today. Total volume on New York was less than 1.1 billion, and Nasdaq traded about 2.25 billion.

TheTechTrader.com was mixed with quite a few gainers today on our board. Leading the way was Questcor Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (QCOR), up 6.50 to 32.50, or 25%.

In addition, low-priced Marshall Edwards Inc. (MSHL) was up 1.58 to 2.75, or 135%, on 11 million shares. Novogen Limited (NVGN) gained 41 cents to 1.30, or 46%.

Other stocks that we traded and highlighted include Acxiom Corporation (ACXM) up 2.14 to 13.98, The Jones Group Inc. (JNY) 1.81 to 12.91, Sino-Global Shipping America, Ltd. (SINO) 68 cents to 5.34, IAC/InterActiveCorp. (IACI) 4.25 to 42.04, Keynote Systems Inc. (KEYN) 2.30 to 23.97, Tempur Pedic International Inc. (TPX) 6.22 to 72.24, and KEMET Corp. (KEM) 1.05 to 12.65.

Among other gainers of note, Central European Media Enterprises Ltd. (CETV) advanced 92 cents to 18.93, and Energizer Holdings Inc. (ENR) was up 3.73 to 81.65.

The ultra-short ETFs did fantastic today. The Direxion Daily Financial Bear 3X Shares (FAZ) was up 3.11 to 48.01, which we traded along with the Direxion Daily Small Cap Bear 3X Shares (TZA) up 3.01 to 37.21. The iPath S&P 500 VIX Short-Term Futures ETN (VXX) jumped 1.30 to 23.30, and the ProShares UltraShort DJ-UBS Crude Oil (SCO) was up 1.89 to 46.28.

On the downside, large-cap and medium-cap losers included Apple Inc. (AAPL) down 10.82 to 392.59, Goldman Sachs (GS) 2.88 to 134.72, InterDigital, Inc. (IDCC) down 4.24 to 69.77, and LSB Industries Inc. (LXU) 4.18 to 40.04. VirnetX Holding Corp (VHC) got hammered for 3.42 down to 31.11. SodaStream International Ltd. (SODA) dropped 2.24 to 65.05. OmniVision Technologies Inc. (OVTI) gave back 1.67 to 30.83, and Molycorp, Inc. (MCP) lost 3.36 to 60.38, with Coffee Holding Co.Inc. (JVA) down 1.84 to 17.24.

Stepping back and reviewing the hourly chart patterns, the indices gapped down, went sharply lower, bounced mid-to-late morning, but resumed to decline for the rest of the day.

It was an ugly session on Wall Street today.

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