The markets ended the week on a down note.  After yesterday's strong rally, they did get a strong start in the morning but failed right at or a little above resistance and then sold off in the morning right to key support, then rallied in mid-afternoon.  But the rally was more of a corrective-looking one, and in the last hour they rolled over and retested the lows, and actually closed at the session lows and at key short-term support.   We'll see if they can stem the tide there and start strongly on Monday or whether they take that out, retest and maybe even go lower, but right now the market is having trouble taking out KEY resistance & extending rallies.

Net on the day, the Dow was down 47, the S&P more than 5 1/2 and the Nasdaq 100 more than 10 1/2.  The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index (SOXX) was down 2.60, but that was about 12 points off the earlier high, a disappointing finish to the session.

The technicals, which were positive all morning, but turned negative on advance-declines by about 290 issues on New York and by about 3 to 2 on Nasdaq.  Up/down volume was about 5 to 3 on negative New York on total volume a little more than 1 1/2 billion.  Nasdaq traded just under 1.8 billion, with about an 11 to 6 negative plurality on advancing versus declining volume.

TheTechTrader.com board was higher in the morning but lower in the afternoon, and there was very little net change in most of the issues at the end of the session.   The exceptions were Apple Computer (AAPL), down 1.52, and China Resources (CHNR), which had a positive announcement and jumped 2.54.  It was Nasdaq's leading percent gainer today, up 27%. 

Other than that, everything was either up or down half a point or less.  So, it was a wash for the session, in terms of most stocks I follow, although the indices did have a decidedly down day to end the week.

Stepping back and reviewing the hourly chart patterns, the indices broke down hard yesterday, taking out support, and snapped back in the afternoon & followed through early this morning.  However, they failed to get back above the declining moving averages on the hourly charts, and until they do so and take out additional overhead resistance, the direction is still down and will continue so unless they decidedly reverse it, perhaps next week.

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.