It was a very strong session to start the week, and the indices started the day with a strong surge from the opening, followed through for about a half hour and then pulled back and consolidated bullishly. They then had another leg up. By mid-day they went into another flag formation, consolidated bullishly again, and then had a 3-wave afternoon rally that hit new 7-year highs on the Nasdaq 100 and new rally highs on the S&P 500, which came close to 1550, just a few points off its multi-year highs. The Dow closed at a new all-time high.

Net on the day the Dow was up 192, the S&P 500 up 20 1/2, and Nasdaq 100 up just under 26. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index (SOXX) was up almost 6 points.

Advance-declines were better than 25 to 8 positive in New York, and about 21 to 8 on Nasdaq. Up/down volume was where the story was today, better than 4 to 1 positive on New York, but on a total of only a little over 1.4 billion. Nasdaq traded about 1.9 billion with a 7 to 2 positive ratio.,

TheTechTrader.com board was nearly all higher with many point-plus gainers . There were only a few stocks on the downside today. The shipping stocks were strong once again, with DryShips (DRYS) up 5.65 and Excel Maritime (EXM) 4.65. Aluminum Corp. of China (ACH), which we picked last December as one of our charts of the year, closed at nearly 74, up nearly 4 points today.

Chinese stocks were firm with China Natural Resources (CHNR) exploding for another 2.65, China Precision Steel (CPSL) up 2.39, and Chinese hotelier Home Inns & Hotels (HMIN) up 2.01.

VMW was up 3.62 to a new all-time high. UEPS, a portfolio position of ours, gained 1.12. Sigma Designs (SIGM) was up 1.05, portfolio position FuelTek (FTEK) up 1.07, DG FastChannel (DGIT) up 1.11, portfolio position Cepheid (CPHD) up 1.09, and Ascent Solar (ASTI) up 1.10.

On the downside, SSTR gave back 1.04 from Friday's strong gains, and JA Solar (JASO) was down 79 cents, along with LDK 37 cents in a mixed solar energy group.

Stepping back and reviewing the hourly chart patterns, as indicated earlier we made new all-time highs on the Dow, 7-year highs on the Nasdaq 100 and approached multi-year highs on the S&P, but fell short. We'll see if we can get a follow-through confirmation from the S&P and an extension.

However, a note of caution: We are about to enter weak seasonal tendencies beginning around the 4th or 5th of October, so I expect towards the end of the week we may start to see a pullback from the current rally mode.

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.