The stock market indices had a very difficult session today, opening lower, and then stair-stepping their way down most of the day. In the last hour they rallied back sharply, but rolled over on some negative news from Europe, and closed near the lows for the day going away. In the last couple minutes they bounced off the spike lows that kept them from closing at the exact lows of the day.

Net on the day, the Dow closed just under 12,000 at 11,997.70, down 198.67, about 30 points off the low. The S&P 500 was down 26.66 at 1234.35, about 3 points off its low, and the Nasdaq 100 was down 37.95 at 2282.59, 4 points off its low.

Advance-declines were about 26 to 4 negative on the New York Stock Exchange, and 21 1/2 to 3 1/2 on Nasdaq. Those were very wide ratios. Up/down volume on New York was horrendous, with 900 million down and only 7 million up. Nasdaq had 1.56 billion down and 240 million up, and a 7 to 1 negative volume ratio.

It was a very, very negative day on Wall Street. However, in spite of such a down day, Apple Inc. (AAPL) was up 1.57 to 390.66 today.

TheTechTrader.com board, as a result, had quite a few losers, but there were some gainers today. On the plus side Affymax, Inc. (AFFY) had a big day, up 2.12 to 7.98, or 36%, on 21 million shares. That’s enormous volume for that stock. E-Commerce China Dangdang Inc. (DANG) jumped 92 cents to 5.57, or 20%, and Central European Distribution Corp. (CEDC) was up 96 cents to 6.07, or 19%.

In addition, G-III Apparel Group, Ltd. (GIII) jumped 3.66 to 24.02, Coinstar Inc. (CSTR) was up 3.45 to 47.45, Spreadtrum Communications Inc. (SPRD) 1.89 to 22.61, Groupon, Inc. (GRPN) 1.12 to 22.27, and SodaStream International Ltd. (SODA) 83 cents to 35.96.

The ultra-shorts had a very good day. The VelocityShares Daily 2x VIX ST ETN (TVIX) was up 4.23 to 49.46, the the Direxion Daily Small Cap Bear 3X Shares (TZA) up 2.56 to 29.55, the Direxion Daily Financial Bear 3X Shares (FAZ) 3.66 to 41.00, the Direxion Daily Emrg Mkts Bear 3X Shares (EDZ) 1.91 to 19.87, the Direxion Daily Large Cap Bear 3X Shares (BGZ) 1.99 to 31.74, and the iPath S&P 500 VIX Short-Term Futures ETN (VXX) 1.98 to 43.71.

The ProShares UltraShort DJ-UBS Crude Oil (SCO) was up 2.02 to 40.15, and that rounded out the gainers for today.

On the downside, point-plus losers included First Solar, Inc. (FSLR) down 2.82 to 45.17, Golar LNG Ltd. (GLNG) 1.49 to 42.12, Molycorp, Inc. (MCP) 1.71 to 28.90, Netflix, Inc. (NFLX) 2.54 to 69.42, Universal Display Corp. (PANL) 2.68 to 38.96, and Onyx Pharmaceuticals Inc. (ONXX) 1.48 to 40.01. Goldman Sachs (GS) was down 5.21 to just under $100 at 99.92.

The Direxion Daily Small Cap Bull 3X Shares (TNA) dropped 4.31 to 42.29, but the Direxion Daily Financial Bull 3X Shares (FAS) was the biggest loser, down 6.88 to 61.42.

Stepping back and reviewing the hourly chart patterns, the indices opened down, and snapped back, but the S&P 500 wouldn’t cooperate. Then they stair-stepped their way lower in a pretty sharp fashion, and closed quite negatively on the session. They rolled over to take out support as well over the last few sessions on the S&P 500 on a negative technical occurrence.

We’ll have to see if there is further downside movement at the next support around the 1215-20 zone on the S&P 500, which is about 15-18 points nearer.

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