The markets had a very nasty end to the session after a sloppy sideways consolidation.  When the market failed to rally and CNBC reported that the market has misinterpreted Bernanke's comments last week about potentially ceasing the Fed raises, the market literally plunged.  The NDX dropped 25 points in a half hour and the S&P about 12 points in the same period of time. 

Late in the session they bounced, but at the end of the day the Dow was down 23.83, the S&P 500 5.43, the Nasdaq 100 14.10 and the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index (SOXX) 4.90.

The technicals were 18 to 14 negative on advance-declines on New York and 19 to 11 negative on Nasdaq. Up/volume was 9 to 7 negative on New York with 1.6 billion traded.  Nearly 2 billion was traded on Nasdaq with about an 11 to 7 negative on up/down volume volume.

TheTechTrader.com board was very active, but by far the star today was DXP Enterprises (DXPE), which was up nearly 6 points today on more than 1 1/3 million shares after its earnings were released last week.  Pacific Ethanol (PEIX) advanced 1.27, Xyratex (XRTX) 1.44, IDSA 1.08 and BioCryst Pharmaceuticals (BCRX) 50 cents.

On the downside, Chindex (CHDX) gave back 1.29 from last week's run and 51job Inc. (JOBS) lost 1.08.  PW Eagle (PWEI) got hammered for 2.45 and Vimicro International (VIMC) gave back 1.11.

Stepping back and reviewing the hourly chart patterns, the key to today's late action was that key layers of support were broken, including a takeout of the April lows on the Nasdaq 100 before closing right near it.  The S&P 500 and Dow held up better, but still gave back a bunch of their gains today.

We'll see if the markets can stabilize after those comments by the Fed and reassert themselves.  The jury is still out on that question.

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.