The market started the week on a down note. Losses were much deeper at mid-day. An afternoon rally brought the indices back, gaining about 40-50% of their earlier losses.

The day started out with a move up on positive futures. They immediately sold off sharply, bounced mid-morning, couldn’t get through initial resistance, and took a second sharp leg down right through lunch hour. After lunch hour ended, the indices firmed fairly steadily, pulled back in the last hour, but late in the session snapped back again, with the NDX closing at new afternoon highs and the S&P closing right at the earlier session rally highs.

The Dow was down 15 today, the S&P 1 Ã,¾, the Nasdaq 100 9.18, and the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index (SOXX) off by 0.53.

The technicals were negative today with advance/declines lower by about 120 issues on New York and by 565 issues on Nasdaq. Up/down volume was nearly flat on the NYSE with 1.5 billion traded, and about 5 to 3 negative on Nasdaq on total volume of more than 1.7 billion.

Most stocks on our TheTechTrader.com board were fairly narrowly changed, but there were a few exceptions. Old favorite NVE Corp. (NVEC) exploded out of its downtrend, gaining 4.62, on 1.47 million today. Sigma Designs (SIGM) advanced to new all-time highs today, closing at 29.72., up 1.74.

But the solar energy group was the story today, with most of the stocks strong. Low-priced SPIR was up 1.19, ASTI 80 cents, Energy Conversion Devices (ENER) 88 cents, and Evergreen Solar (ESLR) up 61 cents in that group.

On the downside, there were no point-plus losers, but Cleveland Bio (CBLI) gave back 84 cents. Global Sources (GSOL) lost 59 cents, Lumera (LMRA) 52 cents, Qiao Xing Universal Telephone (XING) 37 cents, and NYMX down 83 cents, a large percentage loss. HTI fell 35 cents, and Chindex (CHDX) 56 cents.

Stepping back and reviewing the hourly chart patterns, today’s early morning drop decisively cracked down through the rising 21 and 40 day moving averages on the hourly charts on Nasdaq, and remain below them on the S&P.

Unless we get a follow-through to the late rally we had today, the indices appear to be rolling over in what could be a deeper downtrend starting, but we’ll have to get confirmation of that over the next day or two.

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.