The indices ended the week on a down note for the most part, in what appeared to be a profit taking Friday session

They started the day with a sharp sell-off that lasted until the mid-morning, then they rallied just as sharply, but more so on the NDX. The S&P could only take back about 50% of its losses. They then retested, with the S&P holding its earlier lows and the NDX making higher lows, and they rallied steadily but in more of a corrective-looking manner for most of the rest of the session, failing at the declining tops lines resistance levels and rolling over in the last 10-15 minutes or so to deepen the losses.

Net on the day, the Dow was down 38 Ã,½, the S&P 500 5.19 and the Nasdaq 100 6.57, but the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index (SOXX) was up 2.32 today, continuing its strength of late, although that was about half of what its earlier gain was.

The technicals were negative across the board, as the NYSE advance/declines were lower by about 90 issues on New York but 330 issues on Nasdaq. Up/down volume was about 4 to 3 negative on New York on total volume of a little over 1.4 billion. Nasdaq traded just under 2 billion, and had a nearly 2 to 1 negative ratio on declining volume over advancing volume.

So, it was a profit-taking type session today.

TheTechTrader.com board was very narrowly mixed for the most part, with a few outstanding issues. Acorda Therapeutics (ACOR) snapped back 1.62, and Xyratex(XRTX) was up 1.51. Other than that there was no point-plus gainers or losers on our board.

Other stocks of note on the plus side, Home Inns & Hotels (HMIN) was up 70 cents, Chindex (CHDX) snapped back 68 cents, and Avici Systems (AVCI) jumped 30 cents. GIGM gained 27 cents, and Medialink (MDLK) 23 cents.

On the downside there were mostly fractional losses. A few stocks of note, VASCO Data Security (VDSI) gave back 57 cents from recent gains, Radio Shack (RSH) 73 cents, NXTM 54 cents, and Cleveland Bio (CBLI) 67 cents.

Stepping back and reviewing the hourly chart patterns, the indices spent the day vacillating back and forth, but continued the recent downward bias of the last couple days. We’ll see if that translates into anything deeper on Monday, but the keys to today’s action was on the hourly charts that the Nasdaq 100 held its rising 40 day moving average and yesterday’s low as well. The S&P 500, despite breaking down below 1450, only did so by about 1 Ã,½ points and managed to firm back up at the end of the day.

So we’ll have to see how it goes next week, whether they extend the decline or snap back, and if this turns out to be nothing more than a brief consolidation in an ongoing uptrend.

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.