The market certainly had two distinct parts of the session. In the morning the bears were in control. The bulls tried in the morning to rally the indices. After an initial dip, they came back rather sharply but were not able to take out initial key overhead resistance, failed at the declining tops lines and sold off very sharply.

The S&P 500 and Dow made new lows for the decline, but the NDX stopped right at last week’s lows at 1711, retested it, and then had a very strong 5-wave move up in the afternoon, closing at the highs for the day going away.

Net on the day, the NDX was up 20.67, some 32 points off the low. The Dow was up 57.44, about 195 points off the low. The S&P 500 closed 23 points off the low, up 9.22. So, big reversals today as the bulls took control in the afternoon and the bears ran for cover. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index (SOXX) jumped 8 points off the low, closing up 2.35 on the day.

Technicals did reverse. Advanced-declines were were 20 to 13 positive on the NYSE. Up/down volume was better than 2 to 1 on total volume of just over 2 billion. Nasdaq volume was over 2 Ã,¼ billion, with about a 2 Ã,½ to 1 positive ratio. Advance-declines, however, on Nasdaq were only positive by 270 issues.

TheTechTrader.com board was narrowly mixed expect for just a few stocks. By far the leader of the day was Ascent Solar Technologies (ASTI), which gapped up on news of a 23% stake in company by Norsk Hydro, and after a brief pullback and consolidation in the morning the stock gathered steam and ran higher all session, moving from a low of 6.13 to a high of 8.84, closing at 8.79, up 4.14, on more than 6 million shares, which is more than the company’s entire share float.

Also in the solar group, DayStar Technologies (DSTI) was up 1.02 on 1.8 million, a big gain there. The brokerage stocks, after a very negative morning, had a big turnaround in the afternoon, as Bear Stearns rallied 7 points off its low. After being down nearly 5 points, it closed up 2.32 on 10 million shares. Morgan Stanley also rallied about 3, closing up 1.73 on nearly 13 million.

On the downside, the QID naturally dropped from 58 to 55 Ã,½, closing right near the lows for the day going away, down 1.72. That was the only point-plus loser on my board.

Other stocks of note, GigaMedia (GIGM) was up 51 cents, NVE Corp. (NVEC) 56 cents, Onyx Pharmaceuticals (ONXX) 33 cents, Rambus (RMBS) 32 cents, and Qiao Xing Universal Telephone (XING) 35 cents.

Chindex (CHDX) gave back 81 cents today, although it closed about 70 cents off the low, taking back about half the losses. Continental Airlines (CAL), despite the rally on Wall Street, still down 63 cents on the session, although about 1.40 off the lows.

Stepping back and reviewing the hourly chart patterns, despite the S&P and Dow making new pullback lows, the Nasdaq 100 failed to confirm, triggering an afternoon rally and a very sharp one. It closed right at its declining 40-day moving average resistance on the 60 min chart and near its secondary overhead resistance at the 1744-45 area. The S&P 500 snapped back about 50% of its losses over the last 2 days, and closed just underneath key overhead resistance in the 1390-92 zone.

So we’ll see if we get any follow-through tomorrow or whether this was just a short-covering rally. But it was very impressive afternoon indeed.

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.