The indices had a down-session and most of the damage was done in the first hour.  The day started out with a move down right at the get-go. A slight bounce failed to provide any thrust, and then they sold of rather sharply and reached the lows for the session after only an hour.

For the rest of the morning into the early afternoon the indices rallied back in a three-wave advance that failed to follow-through to the upside.  They rolled over and retested successfully and had a last-hour bounce back up that brought them off the lows for the day.

Net on the day, the Dow was still down 47, the S&P 500 down 3 1/3 and the NDX down 5 1/2.  The SOX Index managed to gain 2.33 today and prevented the NDX from having a bigger loss.

Technicals were slightly negative on New York and slightly positive on Nasdaq.  Advance-declines were negative on New York by about 85 issues, positive on Nasdaq by about 195 issues.  Up/down volume was 7 to 6 negative on New York and 10 to 9 negative on Nasdaq.  Total volume on Nasdaq was just under 2 billion and New York just under 1.5 billion

TheTechTrader.com board was mostly narrowly mixed today.   One stock that we traded today, Xyratex (XRTX), on terrific news and upgrades from several firms advanced 4.66 on 4 1/4 million shares.  Other than that no stocks advanced as much as a point, but one of our portfolio positions, Universal Display (PANL), popped for 94 cents.

Other stocks of note, PW Eagle (PWEI), also a portfolio position, was up 59 cents.  Services Acquisition Corp. (SVI) gained 53 cents, Dynamic Materials Corp. (BOOM) 25 cents, Fuel Tech (FTEK) 33 cents, and Ionatron (IOTN)  39 cents.  Rambus (RMBS) also advanced 37 cents.

On the downside, there was only one point-plus loser, which was Rediff.com India (REDF), which broke multi-week support and dropped 1.35, closing at 22.30 on more than 1 million shares.  Otherwise, there were only small fractional losses for the most part. BioCryst Pharmaceuticals (BCRX) gave back 46 cents, Evergreen Solar (ESLR) 27 cents, Neoware Systems (NWRE) 47 cents, and Pacific Ethanol (PEIX) 40 cents.

Stepping back and reviewing the hourly chart patterns, despite the mid-day rally and late session snapback, the indices still closed down on the session, but on the NDX support in the 1661-63 zone did hold on two occasions today. S&P 500 support around the 1298-99 zone held as well.

We'll be watching Tuesday's spike lows on the S&P tomorrow down around the 1296 area if the 1298 zone is taken out.

On the upside, resistance at NDX 1679 and S&P 1306 are the levels to be taken out if the market is going to make any headway to the upside.

Today was a very tricky volatile session with more downside progress, for the most part.

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.