The indices had a terrific start to the week. Although they were up early on they pulled back down quite quickly, with the NDX actually breaking Friday's support lows, but the S&P 500 did not and refused to confirm that early drop. When that occurred they reversed, and then went into a steady 5-wave rally which spiked up into the close, closing at the highs for the day going away.

Net on the day the Dow was up 413, the S&P 500 up 44.85, and the Nasdaq 100 up more than 41. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index (SOXX) was up 4.79.

The technicals were positive by better than 5 to 1 on advance-declines on New York, with 2663 up and 489 down, and by 3 to 1 on Nasdaq, with 2161 up to 755 down. Up/down volume was quite strong, about 7 to 1 positive on New York, although total volume was lighter, at 1.2 billion, with just under 1.1 billion up and a little over 150 million up. Nasdaq traded more than 2 billion shares and had a positive ratio of 17 to 3 on advancing over declining volume.

TheTechTrader.com board was outstanding today with many point-plus gainers. Leading the way today were the agriculture, with Agrium (AGU) up 5.20, CF 5.62, Mosaic (MOS) up 5.27, and POT up 7.11.

Solar energy stocks and shippers had a good day, with SPWR up 7.14 today to 54, , Canadian Solar (CSIQ) gained 1.18 to 12.50, Solarfun (SOLF) up 46 cents to 7.53. Energy Conversion Devices (ENER) 3.57, DryShips (DRYS) up 3.54 to 24.82, and portfolio position Excel Maritime (EXM) up 1.09 to 13.29.

Natural resource stocks did well, with ANR at 43.43 up 5.35, and the Brazilian ETF EWZ at 40.75 was up 3.23, and the agriculture ETF MOO, a new one we started following today, at 27.55 up 2.40.

Other gainers of note, Aluminum Corp. of China (ACH)gained 1.13, and the USO was up 2.28 on the strength in oil.

Stepping back and reviewing the hourly chart patterns , the indices did well to hold support for the last couple sessions. Despite the nominal breakdown on the NDX, the SPX & and Dow held and then rallied strongly into the close. It looks promising that we may extend the rally if we can take out Friday's highs, right now at around the 1368 area on the NDX and 985 or so on the S&P 500, near where it closed.

So a takeout could come as early as tomorrow morning.

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.