The stock market had very positive results at the end of the day today, but did have a difficult afternoon.

The day started out with a gap up, a very strong run in the morning, and then they backed and filled mid-morning, came on again at the lunch hour and into early afternoon and hit the session highs at that point. The Dow was up nearly 300 at that point. But they came down rather sharply mid-afternoon, got a bounce that came back up to resistance and failed to punch through. Then they rolled over sharply right into the close, but with just a few minutes left had a nice bounce back to the upside.

Net on the day the Dow was up nearly 197, closing back over 11,000 at 11,022, the S&P 500 at 1209 and change was up 23.31, and the Nasdaq 100 at 1687.55 was up 26.22. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index (SOXX) closed just under 320, up 3.95.

Advance-declines were better on New York, where they were a little more than 2 1/2 to 1 positive, than on Nasdaq, about 3 to 2 positive. Up/down volume was 2 1/2 to 1 positive on New York on total volume of about 1.2 billion. Nasdaq traded about 1.85 billion and had a ratio of about 3 to 1 positive on advancing over declining volume.

TheTechTrader.com board was narrowly mixed. On the plus side, leading the way was Fuel System Solutions (FSYS), up 3.85 to 51.87. Morgan Stanley (MS) jumped 2.31 to 27.10. Vertex Pharmaceuticals (VRTX), which was our Chart of the Day, extended yesterday's rally, closing at 33.06, up 1.40.

Former Chart of the week TWP at 18.72 was up 1, Interoil (IOC) was up 1.60, and Clean Energy (CLNE) was up 1 on news of a big purchase by Boone Pickens. The USO advanced 1.85 on oil firming back a little bit.

On the downside, Focus Media (FMCN) reversed an early gain and closed down 1.89 on volume of 4 1/4 million. The SDS was down 2.27 and the DUG down 1.10 today.

DryShips (DRYS) lost 1.81, but managed to come back a couple of points off its earlier low. Sequenom (SQNM) hit a new multi-year rally high over 29 earlier in the day, but then plunged below 26, before bouncing back a point to 26.98, down 78 cents on the day, on more than 4 million.

Stepping back and reviewing the hourly chart patterns, the indices had a very strong morning, consolidated late morning, and then came on again to new session highs by mid-day, but gave back a chunk of it and retested key intraday support, holding twice on afternoon tests.

Net-net it was a positive day, but a bit of a disappointing one, because it appeared we'd have a much better session based on the way it started. However, we'll take it.

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.