The indices had a very strong start to the week with a big up-day.

The day started out with a gap up. They pulled back, tested and held and then stair-stepped their way higher, and a late burst in the last 15 minutes spiked them up to the highs for the day.

Net on the day the Dow managed to get back over 8500 to 8504.08, up 235.44, a nearly 3 percent gain. The S&P 500 was up 26.83 to 909.71, also closing very near its high for the day, and the Nasdaq 100 up 37.62, right at its high for the day at 1392.73. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index (SOXX) was up 9, a gain of almost 4 percent today, at 251.28.

Advance-declines were 7 to 1 positive on New York, with 2727 up and 362 down, and 4 Ã,½ to 1 positive, or 2205 to 546, on Nasdaq. Volume was light until the last 45 minutes when it surged into the close. Up/down volume was 14 to 1 positive on New York on rather light total volume of 1 1/4 billion. Nasdaq traded just under 2 billion and had about a 6 Ã,½ to 1 positive volume ratio.

TheTechTrader.com board was almost all higher, other than the ultrashorts and American Italian Pasta (AIPC), which got hammered down 2.47 to 25.64 on more than 1 million shares .

The UltraShort Financial ProShares (SKF) was down 5.75 to 41.77, UltraShort Real Estate ProShares (SRS) fell 3.96 to 20.50, and the Direxion Small Cap 3x Bear (TZA) down 3.23 to 26.80. The Direxion Financial Bear 3x Shares (FAZ) got hammered for 1.08 to close at 4.82 on 253 million shares.

On the plus side, there were many multiple point-plus gainers in the financials today. Goldman Sachs (GS) soared 8.75 to 143.15 and closed at the high for the day going away. Bank of America (BAC) gained 1.06 to 11.73 and Wells Fargo (WFC) 2.06 to 26.93, along with Morgan Stanley (MS) up 2.15 to 28.28, JP Morgan (JPM) up 2.35 to 37.26, and Hartford Financial Services (HIG) up 1.81 to 16.41. General Electric (GE) gained 61 cents today, and the ag stocks continued their winning ways, with Potash (POT) up 4.32 to 111.46 and Mosaic (MOS) up 3.70 to 55 on more than 9 million today.

Palm Inc. (PALM) advanced to a 3-year high today, closing at 12.06, up 76 cetns. RC2 Corp. (RCRC), highlighted this weekend in our Weekend Review, gained 97 cents to 11.40. Riverbed (RVBD), another weekend review pick, was up 51 cents to 18.23. STEC Inc. (STEC) up 1.22 to 15.58, one of our Top 20 picks. Vanda Pharmaceuticals (VNDA) had an exceptional session, up 1.15 to 12.34, comng off a 10.50 low today. Dendreon (DNDN) snapped back 47 cents to 20.99, DG FastChannel (DGIT) back on the rebound at 19.54 up 73 cents. Canadian Solar (CSIQ) was up 42 cents to 8.13. Amazon (AMZN) gained 2.35 at 75.95, with Apple (AAPL) up 4.23 to 126.65.

The iShares MSCI Brazil Index ETF (EWZ) had a strong session, up 3.11 to 50.97, the iShares FTSE/Xinhua China 25 Index (FXI) jumped 1.98 to 35.66, and the U.S. Oil Fund ETF (USO), on crude up more than $2 over $59/barrel, was up 1.41 to 32.71. That also helped the low-priced DXO, double long oil ETF, up 28 cents to 3.54.

Stepping back and reviewing the hourly chart patterns, a strong intraday advance in stair-step- fashion to close at the high for the day was as much as the bulls could ask for. But the volume was rather light today, and we’ll see if that’s meaningful or not over the next day or two, or whether volume picks up on the way up as we go higher. It looks like a retest of higher levels of resistance is in order, but we’ll see how it goes tomorrow.

Harry Boxer is a technical consultant to many Wall Street hedge funds and large institutional traders, and author of TheTechTrader.com.