The stock market had quite a bullish session to start the trading week. The session began with a gap up, ran hard all morning, consolidated, broke to the upside, consolidated again in the afternoon and then surged late in the session to close near the highs for the day going away.

Net on the day the Dow was up 115.78 to 10725.43, new 2010 highs, the S&P 500 up 1420 at 1150.23, just a few cents off its high, and the Nasdaq 100 up 30.96 to 1895.48, a new closing high for the year there, as well.

The technicals confirmed the bullish session. Advance-declines were 3 Ã,½ to 1 positive on New York and 2 Ã,½ to 1 on Nasdaq. Up/down volume was about 5 to 1 positive on New York on total volume of just over 1 billion. Nasdaq traded just under 2 billion and had a 3 1/2 to 1 positive volume ratio.

Most of the gains today were centered on stocks with heavy short positions and in the larger cap stocks, as many low-priced stocks didn’t participate very well.

Leading the way on TheTechTrader.com board today were the ultralong ETFs. The Direxion Large Cap Bull 3X Shares (BGU) gained 2 to 57.62, and Direxion Financial Bull 3x Shares (FAS) up 2.68 to 83.81.

SmartHeat (HEAT) gained 1.27 to 17.14 to round out the point-plus gainers on our board.

Large fractional gainers among our portfolio positions included Xyratex (XRTX) up 53 cent to 15.28, Rambus (RMBS) 36 cents to 21.13, Origin Agritech (SEED) 26 cents to 12.77, Netlist (NLST) 20 cents to 4.87, and Kandi (KNDI) 26 cents to 5.96

Elsewhere, Revlon (REV) gained 71 cents to 18.15, A-Power Energy (APWR) advanced 67 cents to 17.21, MAP Pharmaceuticals (MAPP) 50 cents to 15.80 and the U.S. Oil Fund ETF (USO) 52 cents to 38.93 on firmer oil.

On the downside, there were no point-plus losers. Fractional losses included Telestone Technologies (TSTC) losing 52 cents to 20.44, the Direxion Financial Bear 3x Shares (FAZ) 59 cents to 16.90, the Direxion Small Cap 3x Bear (TZA) 50 cents to 8.65, UltraShort Real Estate ProShares (SRS) 30 cents to 7.25. The Direxion Large Cap Bear 3X Shares (BGZ) 57 cents to 15.4 as the ultrashort sector was obviously lower today.

Genco (GNK) gave back 36 cents to 24.65. Other than that, stocks down on our board today were off just small fractions.

Stepping back and reviewing the hourly chart patterns, the very strong early thrust worked its way higher all session, as the indices did nothing more negative than consolidate bullishly all session and work their way higher. A great start to the week, and we’ll see what kind of follow-through we get, with the SPX just above 1150 at the highs for the year.

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