It was a technically negative day on the Street!  The markets opened lower and went down sharply in the morning, and then spent much of the late morning and afternoon vacillating in a back-and-forth pattern.  They retested the lows with about an hour to go and then bounced sharply back up to resistance.  But that failed once again, rolling them over at the close and ending them down near the lows for the day on the NDX and a bit above them on the S&P 500.

Net on the day, the Dow was down 102 points, the S&P 11.62, the NDX 27 1/4, and the SOX 8.19.  So a very negative dayon the Street.

Technicals confirmed the decline, with advance-declines negative by 23 to 10 on New York and about 2 to 1 on Nasdaq. Up/down volume was very negative by 14 to 4 on New York, with a little less than 1.9 billion traded.  Nasdaq traded a little bit more than 2.2 billion, with a little bit more than a 2 to 1 negative ratio there.

TheTechTrader.com board  was very mixed, about 50/50 up and down.  Gainers were led by Rediff.com India (REDF), which jumped another 1.50.  Pacific Ethanol (PEIX) was up 2.30, and Astea International (ATEA), a former Chart of the Week, was up 1.65 to another new 6-year high.  Viisage (VISG), one of our portfolio positions, gained 50 cents.

On the downside, Dynamic Materials Corp. (BOOM) gave it back by 1.25 today and Phazar (ANTP) lost 85 cents.  But the loser of the day by far was Neoware Systems (NWRE), which got hammered mid-day.  Although it came back nearly 3 points, it was still down 2.61 on the day.

Other losses of note, TradeStation (TRAD) was off 76 cents and Vertex Pharmaceuticals (VRTX) 97 cents.  The alternative energy group got hit, as Energy Conversion Devices (ENER) dropped 43 cents, DayStar Technologies (DSTI) 71 cents and Distributed Energy Systems (DESC) 52 cents, with Evergreen Solar (ESLR) managing to eke out a dime.

Stepping back and reviewing the hourly chart patterns, key moving average and price support was taken out in the morning today, but the best they could do in the afternoon was consolidate.  It sure looks like there's further damage to be done before it's over, and we'll see how it goes tomorrow.

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.