The markets had another down day today despite opening strong on positive pre market futures.  That was about the high for the day right there.  The market sold off in the morning tested support, then bounced around and got real quiet mid-afternoon.  They looked like they were consolidating, but several rally attempts failed at resistance and the markets rolled over in the last couple hours and sold off steadily, closing at the lows for the day going away.

Net on the day, the Dow was down 77, the S&P 500 8 1/2, the Nasdaq 100 a little less than 12, and the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index (SOXX) about 4 1/4.

The technicals were negative by 5 to 3 on the NYSE and about 3 to 2 on Nasdaq.  Up/down volume was 3 to 1 negative on New York with just short of 1.8 billion traded.  Nasdaq traded just short of 2.1 billion with a less than 2 to 1 negative ratio.

TheTechTrader.com board saw losses led by Baidu.com (BIDU), down nearly 6 points today.  Apple Computer (AAPL) fell more than 2, Pacific Ethanol (PEIX) nearly  3, Energy Conversion Devices (ENER) 1.70, 51job, Inc. (JOBS) 1.46, MGP Ingredients (MGPI) 1.92, Sierra Wireless (SWIR) 1.16, and Dynamic Materials Corp. (BOOM) 1.11.  Broadcom (BRCM) gave back a point.

It was a nasty day, to say the least.

There were just a few gainers today.  LMI Aerospace (LMIA), continuing its positive ways and ignoring the negative market, was up another 71 cents.  PW Eagle (PWEI) gained 66 cents and Escala Group (ESCL) moved up 63 cents.

Stepping back and reviewing the hourly chart patterns, the indices rolled over at the end of the day and broke yesterday's lows, and now they've extended this decline from 1721 NDX to 1587 in just over the last week without any substantial rally whatsoever. Thatââ,¬â"¢s 8 down days in a row! Havenââ,¬â"¢t seen that in years!!

With the oscillators as steeply oversold as they are, at multi-year oversold levels, I suspect that the market could snap back sharply at any point.  But with tomorrow being an options expiration Friday, traders may be hesitant to make commitments until next week.

In any case, this has been a very nasty decline and has broken the back of the intermediate uptrend.  We'll be monitoring very carefully the snapback or ensuing rally.  If it comes with poor technicals and low volume, we'll be making a decision about a major shift in our model portfolio to the short side, potentially.

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.