Tuesday was a very good follow-up to Monday’s recovery session, as the indices extended their snapback rally from deeply oversold conditions and made some significant progress.

The day started out with a move up and then a quick retest that was successful. When support held, they rallied sharply in the morning, backed off and retested again but held, and then stair-stepped their way higher all session, holding the intraday moving averages on each pullback. There was a late pullback off the actual session highs, but still leaving the indices with a substantial gain.

Net on the day the Dow was up 111.32 at 10,296.85, the S&P 500 up 14.13 at 1103.32, and the Nasdaq 100 up 16.20 at 1776.92.

Advance-declines were positive by more than 3 to 1 on New York and by about 340 issues on Nasdaq. Up/down volume was about 5 to 1 positive on New York on total volume of under 1.2 billion. Nasdaq traded just under 2.5 billion and had a 3 to 1 positive volume ratio.

TheTechTrader.com board was mostly higher. Leading the way was Lexmark (LXK), up 3.21 to 30.01 on 13.4 million after reporting strong earnings.

Chinese stocks snapped back as expected. China Agritech (CAGC) was up 1.40 to 29.64, Canadian Solar (CSIQ) 80 cents to 23.03, China Automotive (CAAS) 90 cents 17.27, and RINO International (RINO) 62 cents to 21.27.

Other gainers of note, Acorda Pharmaceuticals (ACOR) advanced 1.33 to 30.42, Brigham Exploration (BEXP) 1.40 to 15.27, and MAP Pharmaceuticals (MAPP) 1.16 to 16.19.

US Energy (USEG) was up 44 cents to 5.80, and Toreador Resources (TRGL) 68 cents to 12.38.

The U.S. Oil Fund ETF (USO) gained 81 cents to 37.53 as oil firmed.

In addition, the Direxion Financial Bull 3x Shares (FAS) rose 2.05 to 74.46, and the Direxion Large Cap Bull 3X Shares (BGU) 1.87 to 50.70.

Nanometrics (NANO) added 74 cents to 9.66, and Eastman Kodak (EK) 78 cents to 6.86. Revlon (REV) snapped back 57 cents to 16.20.

Stepping back and reviewing the hourly chart patterns, the indices dipped early to test support, but when that was successful they rallied the rest of the session and closed with substantial gains. The SPX blew through the moving averages on its hourly charts and ran to test key overhead resistance near the 1103-05 zone, closing right there. The NDX wasn’t as strong today, but still advanced 16.20, reaching 1780 at the high and now has strong overhead resistance just ahead at 1790. The SPX, if it can get through this area, will have its next resistance challenge getting past 1115.

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