Is anybody else looking at the long-term or weekly chart of the NASDAQ Composite? The weakness over the last month really wasn't anything out of the ordinary, but over the last few days, I've been seeing a major downward move being set up. It's technically nothing yet, but if things continue as they are, what seems like a garden variety pullback may actually be something much more. Let's take a look.

To really illustrate what the potential problem is, we had to switch to a weekly chart. And more than that, we had to back out far enough so we could see the NASDAQ's low of the bear market, from October of 2002. That's right - 2002! How's that for a blast from the past? Most everyone thought we had left that in the dust (and I think we have), but there's a long-term support line that extends that far back. Guess what - we're pressing under that support line as of this week. As always, a picture is worth a thousand words, so take a look below.

The support line (dashed) is traced from October of 2002's low, March of 2003's low, and the low from 2004. Last week was going to be the third time we touched it since October of '02, but instead of bouncing up and off of it, we quietly slid under it. Wednesday's weakness didn't provide any help in the issue, so now we find ourselves alarmingly well under this long-term support level.

Were it just the trading under the support line, it wouldn't be too much of a red flag. But to fall under the 200 day line (green) and this support line at the same time.....we just have to be a little more concerned than we usually are. It's still too soon to say whether or not this constitutes a technical breakdown, because we have to leave stocks at least a little wiggle room. But with any more selling, the technical damage may be irreparable. You can bet this is going to be one of the charts we've got our eye on over the next few days.

And what about the NASDAQ's short-term chart in the meantime? It doesn't look much better. With yesterday's big 31 point dip, the composite is again teetering on new lows for the year. The line in the sand is at 1968.58. That's the lowest we've been so far this year (from 3/29), although we've been hugging that line off and on for a couple of weeks now. Yesterday's close at 1974.37 leaves us dangerously close to breaking that support. And like we pointed out with the weekly chart, being under the 200 day average (green) is only going to inspire the sellers.

By the way, the S&P 500's support line is still 1163.69.

Price Headley is the founder and chief analyst of BigTrends.com.