The markets had a wild and wooly session fueled by some comments from the FOMC notes, and net on the day ended up with slight losses after some extreme volatility.

The day started out with a gap down on lower pre-market futures, but they didnââ,¬â"¢t make much headway beyond that.  The market stabilized immediately and started rallying and rallied all morning into early afternoon.  They started declining just before the Fed notes came out, and when they did, the Fed indicating they were worried about inflation, the markets didnââ,¬â"¢t like what they heard.  The NDX rolled over sharply, took out the early session lows and spiked down below the lows of the last several days.  The S&P did the same, but they held around last weekââ,¬â"¢s lows, and at that point reversed sharply and in the last 35-40 minutes or so stabilized in a consolidation pattern, but held the snapback gains.

They were still down a bit on the session with the Dow down 15, the S&P 3 1/2, and the NDX down 2.  The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index (SOXX) had a stellar day, up 5.85, although that was about 5 points off the earlier high.

The technicals remained negative.  The snapback rally was unable to bring the technicals back into the plus column.  Advance-declines were lower by 5 to 3 on New York and 3 to 2 on Nasdaq.  Up/down volume was 3 to 2 negative on New York and 5 to 4 negative on Nasdaq.  Total volume on New York was just under 1.6 billion and on Nasdaq just under 1.9 billion.

TheTechTrader.com board was very mixed, with some outstanding gainers.  It was led by far today by Sigma Designs (SIGM) on positive news and an upgrade by a brokerage firm.  The stock jumped 2.68 on 4 Ã,½ million shares, closing at a new 13-year high, and was Nasdaqââ,¬â"¢s #1 percentage gainer today.  Rambus (RMBS) gained 1.85 on news of a licensing agreement with Toshiba.  CMED, one of our Charts of the Week last weekend, jumped 2.05 on 1.7 million shares on news of a new testing kit.  Interphase (INPH) rose 72 cents, DXP Enterprises (DXPE) 41  cents, and Akamai (AKAM) 53 cents.

Most other stocks on my board were down fractionally.  That included Smith Micro (SMSI) which gave back 74 cents, OSIS 51 cents, NVE Corp. (NVEC) 55 cents, U.S. Global Investors (GROW) 48 cents and Apple Computer (AAPL) 58 cents.

Stepping back and reviewing the hourly chart patterns, the indices bent hard today but didnââ,¬â"¢t break, as last weekââ,¬â"¢s support lows held.

However, if these spike lows today are violated I think the market will be headed lower. Thatââ,¬â"¢s the levels weââ,¬â"¢ll be watching closely, namely the 1676-77 area on the NDX and the 1344-45 zone on the S&P.

On the upside, resistance to be watched is todayââ,¬â"¢s nominal new highs on the NDX, just over 1700, and the S&Pââ,¬â"¢s now triple top near 1354.

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.