It was an extremely negative session to end the week. It started with a big gap down that set the tone for the rest of the session. They tried an early bounce that failed quickly and then sold off even more sharply, reaching the morning lows by mid-morning. They bounced back into mid-session but failed to get through the 3-day down-channel mid-point resistance levels, and then rolled over to slightly take out the lows, and with about 20 minutes to go they snapped back into the close to come off the worse levels of the session.

Still, net on the day the Dow was down 250, the S&P 500 down 25, and the Nasdaq 100 off 40. The OEX fell 11.17 and the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index (SOXX) 12.66.

The technicals confirmed the down day, with advance-declines negative by 3 1/2 to 1 on New York and by about 4 to 1 on Nasdaq. Up/down volume was even worse, about 9 to 1 negative on New York with total volume of a little less than 1.5 billion. Nasdaq had about a 8 1/2 to 1 negative plurality on about 1.9 billion traded.

As you can imagine, TheTechTrader.com board was mostly negative, but there were some outstanding gainers. Solar energy stock LDK Solar (LDK), which was down yesterday when most of the other solar stocks were up, gained 2.79 today. Biotech Pozen (POZN) on a drug deal was up 2.78 on 7 million shares, and DryShips (DRYS) managed to gain 1.60 in the shipping sector today. China Development (CTDC) was up 1.41, a big percentage gain, on news of its entry into the solar energy field, and there some small fractional gains in a few of our portfolio stocks today.

On the downside, Aluminum Corp. of China (ACH) gave back 2.80, Sun Power (SPWR) 4.34, Sigma Designs (SIGM) 1.41, FuelTek (FTEK) 1.42, Eschelon Corp. (ELON) 1.35, and yesterday's big winner Cardica (CRDC) gave back 1.32.

Other fractional losers included Chindex (CHDX) down 94 cents, China Medical Technologies (CMED) down 90 cents, Nuance Communications (NUAN) down 82 cents, and Taser (TASR) down 63 cents.

Stepping back and reviewing the hourly chart patterns, as we suspected yesterday the indices had formed consolidative bear-type patterns, and that led to today's decline. We now have a three-wave decline and I'm anticipating a fourth and fifth before we get any decent snapback, or anything of a more bullish nature.

Right now close support around 1950 NDX and 1449-50 SPX are the levels to keep an eye on for Monday, and they may be quickly broken unless the market can quickly right itself.

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.