The markets had a follow-up down-day, although they did stabilize and attempted most of the day to create an intraday basing pattern which could support a rally. Late in the session they indeed did try to rally, with the S&P breaking out, but the NDX didn’t follow suit. When that occurred they turned south again and sold off into the close.

Net on the day the Dow was down 15 Ã,½, the S&P 500 1 Ã,¾, and the Nasdaq 100 4 Ã,¾. But the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index (SOXX) was up 6.65 today, and that prevented Nasdaq from having bigger losses.

Technicals were positive by 3 to 2 on both exchanges on advance-declines, but just barely ahead, however, on up/down volume, with about an 8 to 7 ratio on New York and a less than 10 to 9 ratio on Nasdaq, pretty close to flat on up/down volume today.

TheTechTrader.com board was mostly narrowly mixed. There were some outstanding issues.

On the upside, portfolio position Home Inns & Hotels (HMIN) hit our trading target and we exited today. The stock closed up 2.62 today at 44.93 on just under 1 million shares. Rambus (RMBS) jumped 1.57 on 14 million on a favorable court ruling. Bottomline Technologies (EPAY) followed up on yesterday’s breakout and ran another 94 cents, closing near 13 on more than Ã,½ million. The US Oil Fund (USO) oil ETF was up 96 cents on 4 Ã,½ million, following up on the recent upside reversal. Fuel Tech (FTEK) surged late in the afternoon, advanced 57 cents and closed at 27.22.

Chindex (CHDX) was up another 36 cents today to 23.74, and Simpletech (STEC) was up 39 cents on Ã,¾ million shares. Medialink (MDLK), a new addition to our portfolio, continued its surge of the last three days, closing at 7.22, up 26 cents.

On the downside, there were fractional losses across the board in some of the Chinese stocks such as Aluminum Corp. of China (ACH), American Oriental Bioengineering (AOB), AsiaInfo (ASIA), China Precision Steel (CPSL), and Global Sources (GSOL).

Sigma Designs (SIGM) lost 39 cents.

Stepping back and reviewing the hourly chart patterns, the indices had a very steep break yesterday, followed through sharply lower early on today, but stabilized for the rest of the day, and despite the negative couple sessions at the end of the week the indices are still above their rising trendlines on the S&P and certainly above key lateral price support.

Nasdaq, however, is a bit different, and a bit weaker, but hasn’t taken out key support yet, and the jury is still out on the direction of the market. We’ll see how it goes early next week. I look forward to seeing some of you at our seminar tomorrow in Long Beach, California.

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.