The markets managed to snap back from yesterday's steep losses but it was a very volatile session. The day started out with a large gap up, and following the gap was a bit of an additional move. But that was the high for the day, right there. We had a very sharp and steep sell-off that took the NDX down to retest the lows. The S&P actually made lower lows. The NDX did not, though, which triggered a snapback rally. But they failed at the declining tops resistance lines, rolled over and twice retested in the afternoon,held and then had a fairly sharp rally in the late afternoon that broke out across the multi session declining tops lines but was not able to extend and they backed off again in the last hour.

Still net on the day the Dow managed to gain 66, the S&P 500 almost 7 and the Nasdaq 100 about 10 Ã,½. The SOXX Index was up just a half point today and about 5 points off its earlier high, and that put pressure on Nasdaq today.

The technicals were negative by 3 to 2 on advance-declines on New York and 340 issues on Nasdaq. Up/down volume was 5 to 4 negative on New York with volume pushing 2 billion shares. Nasdaq traded more than 2.4 billion, and had a 13 to 11 positive ratio.

TheTechTrader.com board had a large amount of fractional changes, with just a few point-plus move. They included Hoku Scientific (HOKU), which dropped 1.88, a big percentage loss there, and Transcend Services (TRCR), which snapped back a dollar from recent steep losses. Versar (VSR) got hammered for 3.24, a loss of 20%.

Other than that, fractional losses included Ascent Solar (ASTI) down 68 cents, Chindex (CHDX) 66 cents, FuelTek (FTEK) 79 cents, Global Solutions (GSOL) 49 cents, Research Frontiers (REFR) 37 cents, and Taser (TASR) 45 cents.

On the plus side, there were just very small fractional gains. Sigma Designs (SIGM) was firm today, up 70 cents, and Clicksoft(CKSW) gained 38 cents on more than 2 Ã,¼ million.

Stepping back and reviewing the hourly chart patterns, the indices vacillated today beneath resistance and were not able to break back out above it. We'll see if they can tomorrow.

The keys right now are holding the lows at 1996-97 on the NDX and 1504-05 on the SPX.

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.