The indices had another negative session, and the worst part of the day was in the morning, when the indices opened lower and sold off sharply, taking out several layers of support, bouncing mid-morning but failing at resistance and selling off into mid-afternoon. At that point, they staged a slow, tedious rally that was very choppy but did make some upward progress, taking back some of the losses.

Net on the day, however, the Dow was down 60, the S&P 500 6.60, the NASDAQ 100 19, and the SOX Index a little more than 6 points. Technicals were decidedly negative by 2 to 1 on advance/declines in New York and on up/down volume. The NASDAQ was about 3 to 2 negative on advance/declines, but 3 1/2 to 1 negative on up-down volume. Total volume on the New York Stock Exchange was less than 1.5 billion and more than 1.6 billion on NASDAQ.

TheTechTrader.com board was very mixed, with some big losers and gainers. On the plus side, NICE Systems (NICE) gained $3.07 on more than 1.8 million, Radiation Therapy Services (RTSX) up $1.94 on 2.3 million, and Apple Computer (AAPL) up $1.72 on 34 million.

Other gainers of note, Energy Conversion Devices (ENER) gained $0.96 and XING gained $0.94.

On the down side, heavy losses were incurred today by Medifast (MED), on negative comments from a newsletter, down $4.55 today on 5.8 million. Baidu.com, (BIDU) closed down $4.20 on nearly 5 million, and Qualcomm (QCOM) lost $2.82 on 34.5 million. DXP Enterprises (DXPE) gave back $1.07, and GLD, the gold tracking stock, was off $0.61. The Qs were down $0.49, and the SMH semiconductor tracking stock down $0.42. So it was a mixed session but negative on the indices, and decidedly so.

Stepping back & reviewing the hourly charts, the indices did manage to hold the earlier week lows and bounced late in the session, but not convincingly. So the jury is still out on what direction we're going to be headed. However, the potential bottoming formations are still in place, unless they take out key support, which currently is at 1544 NDX and 1239 S&P. We'll be keep an eye on those levels tomorrow to see if they hold or not & if the indices can make a decisive move either way.

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.