It was another very ugly day today and key support was broken. But the day started out with a successful test of the support over the last 4-5 days. The market had a very sharp morning rally that took the NDX and SPX back up to retest resistance. But the same levels that thwarted rallies over the prior two days proved to be futile for the market, as the indices rolled over mid-morning and fell sharply all day. Only a late last minute snapback prevented the indices from closing at the lows for the day.

Net on the day the Dow was down 80, the S&P down around 9, the NDX off 8 1/3 and the Composite 18 2/3. The SOX index was down about 5 1/3.

The technicals were very negative by 23 to 10 on New York, and about 23 to 8 on Nasdaq. Up/down volume was more than 3 to 1 negative on New York and a similar number on Nasdaq. Volume was fairly heavy on New York with about 1 3/4 billion traded, and about 1.8 billion on Nasdaq.

TheTechTrader.com board was negative across the board. There were a few outstanding gainers. PACT snapped back sharply from yesterday's steep loss, up 76 cents on 2 million shares. FORD was up 38 cents, and ESLR on a rumor of takeover by GE was up 20 cents. Among the junior energy stocks, GEOI was up a quarter and USEG up a nickel.

But for the most part, stocks were down today, led on my board by BOOM, which got hammered for 2.70. Other stocks of note, AIRT was down a point, ENER down 83 cents, and MDRX 58. The larger cap sector saw losses by TASR down 55 cents, QLGC 45 cents and BRCM 34 cents, but nothing real major among larger caps we follow.

Reviewing the overall patterns, the 2005 lows on the NDX were taken out today, but they did snap back in the last couple minutes. So we'll see if that means anything or whether it was just a late short-covering.

The S&P is right at its January lows, and with the oscillators as oversold as they are I'm looking for a snapback rally. The three-week decline, which is now a 5-wave decline, appears to be very close to have reached an end, and I'm looking for a turn in the next day or so.

Good trading!

Harry Boxer is a technical consultant to many Wall Street hedge funds and large institutional traders, and author of TheTechTrader.com, a real-time diary of his day, swing and intermediate-term trades. For more of Harry Boxer, sign up for a FREE 15-day trial to his Real-Time Technical Trading Diary, or sign up for a Free 30-Day Trial to his Top Charts of the Week service.