The bulls had a bad day today as the indices ended at the lows for the day going away.  They did start out with a strong move up at the opening, which basically reached the session highs in the first half hour.  At that point they sold off steadily, in stair-step fashion, until just after lunch when they attempted a snapback rally that failed at resistance, rolled over, took out the lows, and closed right at yesterday's lows on the Nasdaq 100 and above them on the S&P 500.  But essentially we're at the 5-day pullback lows on Nasdaq, and unless they stem the tide right here they are in jeopardy of going perhaps substantially lower.

Net on the day the Dow was down nearly 33 1/2, the S&P 500 6 1/4 and the Nasdaq 17 3/4.

The technicals today were about 9 to 7 negative on advance/declines on New York and 3 to 2 negative on Nasdaq.  Up/down volume was 5 to 3 negative on New York and a little less than 2 to 1 negative on Nasdaq.  Total volume was over 1.5 billion on New York and about 1.85 billion on Nasdaq.

TheTechTrader.com board was very mixed.  There were some outstanding winners.  SFBC International (SFCC), which we traded earlier this morning, advanced 4.25 on over 7 million shares.  PW Eagle (PWEI) showed good relative strength, up 1.05 today, as did Energy Conversion Devices (ENER), up 85 cents.

China Natural Resources (CHNR) advanced 1.03 today.  BioCryst Pharmaceuticals (BCRX) was up 49 cents, Dynamic Materials Corp. (BOOM) up 34 cents and Smith Micro (SMSI) up 19 cents.

On the downside, Apple Computer (AAPL) down 1.73, and Broadcom (BRCM), off 1.15, led the losers.

Portfolio position Eclipsys (ECLP) got clipped for 91 cents.  Pacific Ethanol (PEIX) was down 56 cents, Rediff.com India (REDF) 69 cents, Radvision (RVSN) 53 cents, and TradeStation (TRAD) 62 cents.

Stepping back and reviewing the hourly chart patterns, as indicated earlier, today was a down day for pretty much the whole session, and at the end of the day retested the pullback lows of the Nasdaq 100, but are above them on the S&P and Dow.

With the blue chips acting a bit better here, we'll see if that means anything.  It'll be interesting to see if they continue to act better that the NDX on Friday.

Levels we'll be watching are near where they closed, at the 1645-46 zone on the NDX.  Beneath that, if broken, the February lows in the 1638-40 zone are key.

S&P 500 support is at 1268 1/2, and beneath that is key support in the 1255-60 zone.

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.