The stock market indices had a very difficult day today, although they gapped up sharply in the morning and reached a key resistance area near 1250 S&P 500. They rolled over sharply to fill the gap, and then bounced back, did about a 50% retracement around the time of the FOMC meeting, and then rolled over very hard to take the Nasdaq 100 from 2305 down to 2260, which was a 45-point drop. The S&P 500 dropped from 1245 down to 1220, a 5-point drop, with only a slight bounce at the close, closing at the session lows.

It wasn’t as bad as it may seem after the gap up in the morning, but the Dow was down for the day.

Net on the day, the Dow was down 55.46 at 11,954.94, nearly 200 points off its high, while the S&P 500 dropped 10.74 to 1225.73, 24 points off its high, and the Nasdaq 100 was down 23.87 at 2268.37, or 48 points off its high.

Advance-declines moved sharply to the downside, and closed 22 to 8 negative on the New York Stock Exchange, and 3 1/2 to 1 negative on Nasdaq. Up/down volume was 5 to 1 negative on New York, with total volume of over 900 million shares traded today. Nasdaq traded over 1.7 billion shares and had a 4 to 1 negative ratio on declining volume over advancing volume.

TheTechTrader.com board was nearly all lower, with only one exception, Oncothyreon Inc (ONTY), up 1 cent to 8.00 even. Other than that everything was down.

We did, however, trade some stocks that had nice moves today. By far, the star of the day today was LiveDeal, Inc. (LIVE), up 4.15 to 5.60, or 290%. We traded that at about the 3.00 level, and had a stellar day. The St. Joe Company (JOE) was up 1.29 to 15.63, and Pharmacyclics Inc. (PCYC) jumped 1.06 to 13.71.

Other gainers of note today included Radvision Ltd. (RVSN), up 1.30 to 9.72, and Cabot Microelectronics Corp. (CCMP), up 5.78 to 45.99, although it traded over 50 earlier today. Seaspan Corp. (SSW) advanced 1.71 to 12.16, GeoEye, Inc. (GEOY) 2.14 to 21.15, and Urban Outfitters Inc. (URBN) 1.41 to 27.87.

The ultra-shorts rallied from lower on the day to higher. The Direxion Daily Small Cap Bear 3X Shares (TZA) had a nearly 3-point run today, and closed up 1.70 to 29.67. The Direxion Daily Financial Bear 3X Shares (FAZ) jumped 1.56 to 42.52.

On the downside, Apple Inc. (AAPL) was down 3.03 to 388.81, Goldman Sachs (GS) down 3.00 to 95.03, Netflix, Inc. (NFLX) 3.15 to 72.11, Universal Display Corp. (PANL) 2.26 to 36.74, and Travelzoo Inc. (TZOO) 2.05 to 26.95.

These are just a few of the point-plus losers. There were many more on the downside today.

Stepping back and reviewing the hourly chart patterns, the indices went to new pullback lows, and new 3-week lows today. They closed near the session lows, but bounced late in the day off key support levels on the S&P 500 down around the 1220 area, reaching 1219.43, before bouncing into the close at 1225.37.

Today was a very nasty day, but in any case, we’ll see if there’s any snapback follow-through tomorrow.

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