We had a solid follow-through session today on Wall Street on Thursday, but it was a strange one because it was led by financials and airlines, as oil got hammered. Oil closed more than $7 off its high today and closed below $130 for the first time in several weeks and below its trendline, possibly reversing the entire trend, which would certainly help an ailing economy.

Starting out the day, the indexes gapped up, went to new rally highs, reached 1860 on the Nasdaq 100 and near 1260 on the S&P 500, before a sharp pullback in the morning brought them back and retested intraday support. They bounced but couldn't get through minor resistance and then backed off to retest. When the retest was successful, they had another sharp rally that actually took out the highs nominally, but they couldn't follow through and backed off in the last hour. Only in the last 10 minutes did they firm up again to add to the strong gains.

Net on the day the Dow was up 207 at 11,446, the S&P 500 up nearly 15 at just under 1260, and the Nasdaq 100 up 9.60 at about 1853 1/2. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index (SOXX) was up 8.28.

The technicals were positive by 3 to 1 on advance-declines on New York and by 2 to 1 on Nasdaq. Up/down volume, however, was much better, about 2 1/2 to 1 on New York on total volume of about 1.85 billion. Nasdaq traded 2 1/2 billion and had a ratio of more than 3 to 1 on advancing over declining volume.

So, strong volume today as the indices worked their way higher.

With the price of oil dropping sharply, alternative energy such as the solar energy stocks were adversely affected. Canadian Solar (CSIQ) fell 4.28, JA Solar (JASO) 86 cents and Solarfun (SOLF) 85 cents. Energy Conversion Devices (ENER), in particular, got hammered for 3.25, but was up as much as 3 in the morning, so about a 6 1/2 point reversal. APWR lost 1.52

The USO oil ETF, as a result of falling oil, was down 3.83. In the junior oil sector Brigham Exploration (BEXP) dropped 1.59 , and Northern Oil & Gas (NOG) 1.07.

Recent favorite Sequenom (SQNM) backed off 1.54 to 20 on profit-taking after reaching as high as 23 yesterday .

Shippers were generally mixed, with DryShips (DRYS) down 1.06, Excel Maritime (EXM) up 37 cents, and TBS International (TBSI) up 75 cents.

There were no stocks on our board up more than a point today, which is a rare statistic on a day when the Dow was up more than 200 points.

Fractional gainers included Washington Mutual (WM) up 46 cents, Exide Technologies (XIDE) up 49 cents, Sigma Designs (SIGM) 52 cents, and Digiatl Ally (DGLY) up 56 cents.

The ProShares UltraShort Oil & Gas ETF (DUG) gained 92 cents, was up nearly 2 1/2 with just an hour to go, but gave back a big chunck of it in the last hour.

Stepping back and reviewing the hourly chart patterns, the indices were up in the morning, then back down in the morning, then back up in the afternoon, and consolidated in the last hour with a downward bias.

So we had what I would call a positive follow-up day, but you wouldn’t know by some of the stocks we watch. We'll see if they can pick it up tomorrow if the market can get through formidable overhead resistance, which pushed back the indices today at SPX 1260 and NDX 1860.

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.