The indices had a solid comeback in the afternoon, recovering sharply from the newly set lows for the week earlier in the session. They started out with a move up, came down, bounced once, and then had a strong morning sell off that saw Nasdaq 100 plunge to 1505 and the S&P 500 just above 1200. At that point, we hit the low for the day just after 11 a.m.

The market staged a very strong snapback rally when crude oil prices started dropping. The NDX jumped from 1505 to 1525 over the span of three hours to about 2 p.m. where it nearly equaled the morning high. The S&P did the same, snapping back from 1201 to about 1211.

Then they went into an afternoon pullback, resulting in a final snapback up in the last half hour that brought the Nasdaq back up near its session high. The S&P closed below the highs but still had a positive day, although the Nasdaq Composite did not manage to get back in the plus column. At the end of the day, the Dow was up 46; the S&P was up 2.20; the Nasdaq 100 up 2.40, but the Composite was down a buck and a half.

The story of the day was the SOX Semiconductor Index, which was strong from a morning low throughout the afternoon. It closed up more than 6 on the day, or nearly 1.5 percent — that surely helped NASDAQ get back to near even.

Technicals, however, were negative, and did not manage to get back in the plus column by 3-to-2 in New York, and a similar amount on Nasdaq. Up/down volume was flat to slight lower on both exchanges. Total volume was just under 1.5 billion on New York, and about 1.7 billion on Nasdaq.

We had a mixed picture on TheTechTrader.com board. The big leader was BOOM, up $1.12. The loser was DCAI, down $1.22. Other than that, nothing was up or down as much as a point.

Other stocks of note: MDRX, one of our watch board stocks, up 54 cents; IMAX up 55 cents; SMH up 39 cents; with BRCM ahead 40 cents. On the downside, CRYP backed off 70 cents; FCEL 91 cents and SIGM dropped 58 cents on a downgrade.

Looking at the overall patterns, the indices came down at or below important support but did manage to bounce late in the day. It was a significant, impulsive-type bounce. We'll see if it can follow through tomorrow.

Good trading!

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.