The markets had an extremely weak session, starting out with a gap down. They went lower all morning, stabilized around mid-day, tried to rally, failed to get through resistance and rolled over, and moved sharply lower all afternoon into the close.

The indices ended down 280 on the Dow, 34 Ã,½ on the S&P 500, and 48 Ã,¼ on the Nasdaq 100. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index (SOXX) was down almost 3 percent, or 11 Ã,½ points, and the OEX was down 15 Ã,¾, a big drop for that index.

The technicals were equally as bad with advance-declines around 29 to 4 negative on New York and 24 to 6 on Nasdaq However, as bad as that was the up/down volume was even worse by 26 to 1 negative on New York on total volume of about 1.4 billion, and 9 to 1 negative on Nasdaq on volume of about 1 1/2 billion.

TheTechTrader.com board, as you can imagine, was vastly lower, with only a few issues up small fractions bucking the trend. Sigma Designs (SIGM) was strong all day and set a new all-time high at 38.24, before giving most of it up in the last 45 minutes, still up 34 cents on the day, but $1 off the earlier high on 2.4 million. Still excellent relative strength there. Onyx Pharmaceuticals (ONXX) followed up on yesterday's gains, moving ahead 33 cents.

On the downside, DryShips (DRYS) fell 5 today. Aluminum Corp. of China (ACH) retested its all-time highs set yesterday at 69 Ã,¾, hitting 69 1/2 before dropping a whopping $10 at one point, although it did snap back and ended down 5.45 on the day on 10 million shares, a big negative reversal there.

Netgear (NTGR), one of our Boxer Shorts and Charts of the Week (on the short side), fell 1.34 today. China Medical Technologies (CMED) was down 2.22 in a weak Chinese sector. Force Protection (FRPT) was down 1.45. JA Solar (JASO) 1.92, LSB Industries (LXU) 1.20, EMW 2.52, BOOM 1.52, and Excel Maritime (EXM) 1.19.

There were plenty of losses today, with a very big ratio of decliners over winners.

Stepping back and reviewing the hourly chart patterns, we had an early big breakaway gap to the downside, and they hesitated for a short time in the morning, forming bear flags, and went sharply lower by late morning. They stabilized into the FOMC announcement, but that wasn't taken very well for sure, as the markets dropped dramatically, the NDX dropping 25 points in the last two hours and. the S&P 500 19 points and closing very close to the lows for the day going away.

So, it was a very negative session, which definitely ended the recent rally, and we'll be looking for deeper retests. Although there is some support at the current levels, I'm looking for additional downside potential to the 1875-80 zone on the Nasdaq 100 and potentially around the 1420-22 zone on the S&P 500. We'll see if they're able to hold those levels and right the ship.

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.