The indices had a topsy-turvy day starting with a sharply lower opening on lower pre-market futures indications.  The morning was spent stair-stepping lower.  At just before lunch hour the market spiked down to retest Friday's low on the NDX, made a lower low on the S&P but just nominally, and then had a very sharp bounce, but failed at resistance.  They spent the better part of the next couple hours retesting the lows, taking out the lows on the NDX but not on the S&P 500 and Dow.  That positive divergence set up a very strong afternoon rally, which saw the NDX jump from 1571 to 1594, some 23 points, in a little more than an hour.

The S&P jumped from 1255 to 1269, a 14-point run, but unfortunately couldn't hold it into the close.  The last 20 minutes was spent backing off sharply and taking back about 50% of that rally.

Net on the day the indices ended lower, with the Dow down 18.73, the S&P 500 a little less than 5, and the Nasdaq 100 a little more than 16 1/4.  The culprit today was by far the SOX Index, which got hammered for 20 1/2 points, or about 4 1/2 percent.  That really hurt Nasdaq today.

The technicals were decidedly negative with advance/declines lower by 2 to 1 on New York and more than 2 to 1 on Nasdaq.  Up/down volume was more than 3 to 1 negative with more 2 billion traded on New York, and also 3 to 1 negative on nearly 2 1/4 billion traded on Nasdaq.

TheTechTrader.com board was decidedly negative with all issues lower except for one, Sierra Wireless (SWIR).  That managed to get back into the plus column, up 29 cents.

But the Street ran red today, with major losses incurred by Pacific Ethanol (PEIX) down 4 on 8.8 million.  Baidu.com (BIDU) gave back 3.16 on 2 1/2 million.  Broadcom (BRCM) lost 2.86 on 26 1/2 million.  Energy Conversion Devices (ENER) gave back 2.82 on 2.1 million, DXP Enterprises (DXPE) lost 2.36, LMI Aerospace (LMIA) 1.49, 51job, Inc. (JOBS) 1.64, and Rediff.com India (REDF) gave back 1.76, closing under 15 today.

It was a rather climactic-looking type session today, and when you step back and look at the overall chart patterns some positive divergences occurred that led to a late rally, but failed to follow through and pulled back from multiple-day declining tops lines. 

Tomorrow we'll be watching resistance at the 1595 level on the Nasdaq 100, and above that the 1603-05 area. On the S&P today's rally high beneath 1269 and then multiple highs from prior days in the 1272-75 zone will be monitored.

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.