The stock market indices suffered a down session and a very sharp sell-off today, but that came off a very strong rally in the morning. The indices suddenly reversed, perhaps overdue for a retesting or consolidation.

The day started out with a gap down. The indices then bounced, came down, retested the lows, and held in the morning. They jumped sharply from about 2213 up to 2244 on the Nasdaq 100, and from 1189 and change to 1204 on the S&P 500. They then came down in a 5-wave decline that took the NDX all the way back from nearly 2245 to 2207, and the S&P 500 down from 1204 to under 1184. They bounced in the last half hour, but pulled back in the last 10 minutes.

Net on the day, the Dow was down 119.05 at 11,295.81, the S&P 500 down 12.72 at 1185.90, and the Nasdaq 100 down 9.45 at 2214.29.

Advance-declines were a little less than 4 to 1 negative on the New York Stock Exchange, and a little more than 3 to 1 negative on Nasdaq. Up/down volume was 5 1/2 to 1 negative on New York, with total volume of 940 million shares traded. Nasdaq traded 1.94 billion shares, and had a 12 to 7 negative volume ratio.

TheTechTrader.com board was mixed, although there were some outstanding gainers. They included SodaStream International Ltd. (SODA), which jumped 2.02 to 40.88, along with Spreadtrum Communications Inc. (SPRD) up 1.51 to 19.99, Westport Innovations Inc. (WPRT) 1.07 to 28.31, and Molycorp, Inc. (MCP) 1.08 to 56.71.

In addition, Valero Energy Corp. (VLO) was up 91 cents to 23.19, SanDisk Corp. (SNDK) 89 cents to 38.52, and Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (REGN) 92 cents to 72.19.

Low-priced Genco Shipping & Trading Ltd. (GNK) did very well today, up 62 cents to 7.76, or nearly 9%.

The ultra-short ETFs also did very well today. The Direxion Daily Small Cap Bear 3X Shares (TZA) advanced 2.32 to 44.74, the Direxion Daily Financial Bear 3X Shares (FAZ) 3.08 to 58.06, and the VelocityShares Daily 2x VIX ST ETN (TVIX)1.72 to 57.04.

On the downside, Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN) lost 2.64 to 217.26, Goldman Sachs (GS) 3.55 to 104.79, InterDigital, Inc. (IDCC) 2.98 to 67.13, Netflix, Inc. (NFLX) 4.80 to 211.20, and Universal Display Corp. (PANL) 1.34 to 51.42.

Stepping back and reviewing the hourly chart patterns, the indices were mixed at the opening, rallied sharply to new rally highs, and then pulled back in a very steep 5-wave decline before bouncing in the last hour only to rollover into the close, falling more than 119 on the Dow.

It was a pretty decisive down day today. We’ll have to see how it goes tomorrow.

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