The indices suffered more sharp losses today, as expected. The day started out with a large gap down. The indices moved sharply lower, tested support, bounced, and then took them out mid-day, reaching secondary support around 1270 NDX and 815 SPX. When that held for about an hour, they tried to rally and did so, but with about 10 minutes to go sold off very sharply and gave back the entire rally on the SPX, closing near the lows for the day on that index and not from it on the NDX.

Net on the day the Dow was down 186.29 at 7789.56, the S&P 500 down 19.94 to 815.54, and the Nasdaq 100 down 37.68 to 1275.42. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index (SOXX) fell 9.48 to 235.90.

Advance-declines were negative by nearly 4 to 1 on New York and by about 3 to 1 on Nasdaq. Up/down volume was more than 5 to 1 negative on New York on total volume of 1.2 billion. Nasdaq traded around 1 ¾ billion and had about a 7 to 1 negative volume ratio.

TheTechTrader.com board was mostly negative, as a result. Only the ultrashorts had a big day. The UltraShort Real Estate ProShares (SRS) was up 5.95 to 45.12, the SKF ultrashort financial ETF up 5.55 to 89.85, the Direxion Financial Bear 3x Shares (FAZ) up 1.55 to 18.05, and the Direxion Large Cap Bear 3X Shares (BGZ) up 3.78 to 57.42.

On the downside, Apple (AAPL) lost 3.45, and Research in Motion (RIMM) fell 4.02 in a very weak handheld sector. Amazon (AMZN) lost 2.48.

Agriculture stocks also had a difficult session, with Potash (POT) falling 3.70, Agrium (AGU) 1.32, and Mosaic (MOS) 1.95.

SunPower (SPWR) lost 1.65, and Cree Inc.(CREE) fell 1.03.

Stepping back and reviewing the hourly chart patterns. The indices came down hard in the morning, bounced early but rolled over and then broke down and spiked to lower lows by mid-day, only to rally back in the last 1 1/2 hours and then cave in the last 10 minutes.

So, quite a negative session, as the indices extended the losses. But looking at the overall chart patterns, we still have not broken the intermediate uptrends, and the pullback on the hourly charts looks much more orderly than on the short-term charts.

So we'll see it they can hold those trendlines, or break them and do some deeper retesting. That remains to be seen, but the SPX did close right on its 4-week intermediate trendline. Perhaps a key point in the trend here!

Good trading!

Harry

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