The market had two distinct parts of the session today, up in the morning and down harder in the afternoon, and net on the day they closed down again and at the lows for the day going away.  The day started out with a firm opening, a quick pullback to test intraday moving averages on the 5-minute charts.  That held, and then a strong morning rally resulted in a consolidation that created a secondary move mid-day.

The indices pulled back down and retested the morning lows, and when they cracked the rest of the afternoon they sold off hard.

Net on the day the Dow was down 71, the S&P 500 7 3/4, the Nasdaq 100 more than 10, and the SOX Index more than 11, and that really pressured Nasdaq all day, as the SMH went to a 7-month low, testing its 52-week October lows.

The technicals were negative by 3 to 2 on advance-declines on New York and by about 320 issues on Nasdaq.  Up/down volume was negative by more than 2 to 1 on New York and by 2 1/2 to 1 on Nasdaq, with the majority of the damage done in the last couple hours.

TheTechTrader.com board was mixed.  Obviously a lot of stocks that were up in the morning gave it back.  But the leader today was Martek Biosciences (MATK), up nearly 3 points on more than 5 1/2 million shares, on very strong news.  Pacific Ethanol (PEIX) advanced 92 cents, but gave back more than half of its earlier gain.  51job, Inc. (JOBS) jumped 1.17 today, and other than that the gains were just small and fractional.

On the downside, Boxer Short of the Week Allegheny Technologies (ATI) dropped another 3 1/2 points today on 5.8 million shares and continues its nasty decline.  DXP Enterprises (DXPE) gave back 1.48, Dynamic Materials Corp. (BOOM) 1.01, and Baidu.com (BIDU) after a very sharp morning rally gave it all back and then some, closing down 2.20 on the day, a big negative reversal there.  Apple Computer (AAPL) lost 1.16.

Stepping back and reviewing the hourly chart patterns, the indices failed right at or just beneath their 40-day moving averages on the hourly charts, and sold off for the rest of the session, closing near the full decline lows.  The indices could still be in a basing/consolidation type pattern.  Which way it resolves is still in question, but an important test may be coming tomorrow morning and could be critical to the intermediate trend

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.