It was a negative day on the Street.  Only a late bounce, which appeared to be a short-covering rally in the last 15 minutes, prevented them from closing at the lows for the day going away.

The day started out with a gap-down that signaled the negative day today.  The indices worked their way lower all morning.  Just before lunch they started a rally that took them into the early afternoon and up through some intraday layers of resistance, but failed to follow-through and sold off very sharply in the afternoon.

Only the last 45 minutes or so did they stabilize and then rally back, but they just rallied back to resistance at the close.

Net on the day the Dow was down 103, and that was some 30 points off the low.  The S&P 500 was down more than 12 1/2.  The NDX was down 13, the Composite nearly 17, and the SOX was down more than 4.

Technicals were about 2 to 1 negative on both exchanges on the advance-declines, and up/down volume was worse, about 4 1/2 to 1 negative on New York.  Total volume there was about 1.45 billion.  Nasdaq had more than 1.5 billion traded, with about an 11 to 4 negative ratio on volume, or almost 3 to 1 negative.

TheTechTrader.com board was mostly down, though there were a couple outstanding issues today.  Vertex Pharmaceuticals (VRTX) on some positive drug news was up 2.21 on 23 million shares, an excellent day there and a breakout.  CryptoLogic (CRYP) advanced 1.05 on a pre-earnings session.  They're announcing tonight.

Abatix (ABIX) exploded on news as well, up nearly 50%, or 2.37, on heavy volume for that one.

On the downside, there were a few big losses, led by Energy Conversion Devices (ENER), one of our Watchboard stocks that got hammered on a negative earnings report, down 3.45.  Dynamic Materials (BOOM) gave back 1.50 and Stamps.com (STMP) 1.21.

Other than that, most stocks were up small fractions.

Stepping back and reviewing the overall patterns, the indices backed off of their major intermediate declining tops lines and price resistance around the 1455-65 zone on the Nasdaq 100, and up at the 1179-80 zone on the S&P 500.

Key initial support was broken today on the S&P, not on the Nasdaq, and we'll see if the strength in the Nasdaq 100 can pull the other indices back up or whether the blue chips will lead them down.

Good trading!

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.