The markets had a terrific follow up to yesterday afternoon's late rally, although the going was in question early on. Even though the market opened strong, they backed off pretty much immediately in the morning, retested short-term support and held, and then rallied to nominal new highs on both indices by noon. But at that point they backed off again,but retested successfully. The rest of the afternoon the market rallied steadily and closed near the highs for the day.

Net on the day the Dow was up 70 3/4, the S&P was up 9 3/4, and the Nasdaq 100 10 1/2. All of that despite the fact that the SOX, which was under pressure all day, was down 3.64. A remarkable day considering there was no leadership from the semiconductors today.

Technicals were positive, with advance-declines 22 to 10 1/2 on New York and by about 20 to 9 on Nadsaq. Up/down volume was more than 3 to 1 positive on New York. Total volume was 1 2/3 billion. Nasdaq was also 3 to 1 positive on volume of a little less than 1.5 billion.

TheTechTrader.com board was nearly all positive today, with just two decliners out of 30 or so. Today's leader by far was BioCryst Pharmaceuticals (BCRX), which exploded on another 19 million shares, up 2.38 today, hitting a new five-year high. Forward Industries (FORD) snapped back solidly, up 1.84 on more than 1 million shares.

Other strong stocks of note, Cutera (CUTR), one of our Charts of the Week portfolio stocks, was up 90 cents. Dynamic Materials (BOOM) was up 60 cents, Convera (CNVR) up 62 cents, Energy Conversion Devices (ENER) up 50 cents, Kendle International (KNDL) up 62 cents, and Sierra Wireless (SWIR) up 65 cents.

On the downside, there were very minor fractional losses by Neoware (NWRE) and Distributed Energy Systems (DESC).

Stepping back and reviewing the hourly chart patterns, the significance of today was that the indices broke up through their declining 40-day moving averages and through a couple key layers of price resistance, and closed near the session highs. The NDX closed near 1544-45, the next level of resistance, and the S&P took out key 1185-86 resistance, closing at 1186.79.

Monday we'll back watching for a rally extension & to see if the indices van take out further overhead price resistance. On the NDX, keep an eye on the 1545-46 zone and then the 1550-51 zone. SPX resistance is at 1190 and then the 1993-94 zone.

Good trading!

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.