The indices had a down session continuing yesterday afternoon's slide.

The day started out with the indices opening lower. Then Nasdaq rallied quite nicely in the first few minutes, but the S&P and Dow really didn't follow. A morning sell-off ensued before the market went sideways for several hours. In the afternoon when no rally materialized and resistance was unable to be overcome, the markets then moved lower, took out the morning lows on the Nasdaq 100 but failed to do so on the S&P. That resulted in another rally try that failed at the declining tops lines intraday. In the last few hours they slipped lower and closed near the lows from the session.

The Dow was down 24, the S&P just under 6. The Nasdaq led the market down, with the Composite down 16.66 and the 100 down 16.55. The SOX was down about 1 1/2 percent, down 6.10.

Advance-declines were about 2 to 1 negative on New York and a similar number on Nasdaq. Up/down volume was 2 1/2 to 1 negative on New York. Total volume there was about 1.3 billion. Nasdaq had about 1.5 billion traded, with about 1.145 billion to the downside, or about 3 to 1 negative on advancing/declining volume.

TheTechTrader.com board had a wild session. Momentum stock BOOM exploded this morning, running from 24 and change to nearly 29. In the afternoon, however, it dropped a dramatic 5 points, closing down on the session on nearly 9 million shares, a big reversal, high-volume day there.

DCAI backed off 2.26 from recent gains, and MFLX, despite a strong rally in the morning when it was up more than 2 points, reversed 3 1/2 points and closed down 1.23 on the day.

Other stocks of note on the downside, MDKI was down 99 cents, SLNK 62 cents, SIGM 53 cents, and CRYP down 78 cents on the day, along with AIRT, down 79 cents.

In the large-cap sector, the SMH was down 65 cents and the Qs 38 cents. On the plus side, there were fractional gains in ENER up 67 cents and DSTI 66 cents in the alternative energy sector.

Stepping back and reviewing the overall patterns, after the sharp rally of the prior few days the market has given back part of its profits, and despite the fact that the S&P and Dow went to new 2005 highs, the Nasdaq has been trailing badly and has failed at its intra-year declining tops line before dropping back.

Now we're retesting the rising 40-day moving average on the hourly charts on the Nasdaq 100 and price support at around 1215-16 on the S&P.

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.