The markets had two very distinct parts of the session, a gap down and very nasty morning decline which reached the session lows just before lunch hour. Then they started a snapback rally that failed at resistance in mid-afternoon, pulled back and retested successfully, and then came on again, particularly in the last half hour when they broke out and set new session highs on the NDX, moving deeply back into the opening down-gap. The S&P rallied right back to its key breakdown point, when it broke through the 1546-47 zone, and closed right there at 1546.99.

Net on the day, the Dow was down 53, but about 95 points off the low. The S&P was down 3.20, but about 13 points off its low. The Nasdaq 100 was down 3.80, and about 18 points off the low. So, as you can see, strong comebacks off the mid-day lows.

The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index (SOXX) fell 7.32, about 6 points off its low.

The technicals remained negative by 2 to 1 on advance-declines on New York and about 3 to 2 on Nasdaq. Up/down volume was 5 to 3 negative on New York and about 2 to 1 negative on Nasdaq. Total volume on New York was more than 1.7 billion and Nasdaq traded just under 2.2 billion.

TheTechTrader.com board was mostly lower today, but there were no point-plus losers on my board, only fractional losses. On the plus side, however, there were some point-plus gainers, with JA Solar (JASO) snapping back 1.73 and Monday's Chart of the Day Dynacq (DYII) snapping back 1.14 on 2.3 million.

Other stocks of note, portfolio position EMC was up 23 cents, Chart of the Week GMST up 12 cents, and recent Chart of the Week Euroseas (ESEA) up 13 cents. Chart of the Week Rediff.com India (REDF) was up 41 cents, recent Chart of the Week Versar (VSR) up 19 cents, and portfolio position Exide Technologies (XIDE) up 11 cents.

Stocks of note on the downside included portfolio position China Medical Technologies (CMED), which gave back 56 cents. DG FastChannel (DGIT) lost 42 cents. Recent Chart of the Week Excel Maritime (EXM) fell 88 cents, Jones Soda (JSDA) 52 cents, and LSB Industries (LXU) 47 cents.

In addition, Sigma Designs (SIGM) gave back 31 cents, Research Frontiers (REFR) 42 cents, Spectrum Control (SPEC) 41 cents and Taser (TASR) 33 cents.

Stepping back and reviewing the hourly chart patterns, the indices bent but didn’t break today, and came back strong in the afternoon to retest resistance. We'll see if we can follow through to the upside, but we'll be watching carefully today's lows as they are now key short-term support near 2020 on the NDX and 1534 on the S&P.

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.