The stock market indices had an extremely volatile session Friday, but at the end of the day a strong late-afternoon, short covering-fueled rally spiked the market up and put them back in the plus column.

The day started out with a little pop at the opening, then an immediate drop that took the indices to new pullback lows. Then they had a very sharp 15-minute rally, where Nasdaq 100 jumped 20 points and S&P 500 about 11.

The rally failed at resistance and rolled over ,took out the lows, and then spiked down on heavy volume with about two hours to go, reaching an extreme negative NYSE tick of -1473. With the NYSE McClellan Oscillator at more than -300 at that point, the indices were set up for a strong snapback rally, and certainly got one, as he NDX rallied for 35 points and the SPX 23 points in about a 70-minute span.

In the last 30-40 minutes they backed and filling but did not give it back, surging to the close.

Net on the day the Dow was up 10.05 to 10012.23, 177 points off its low, and the S&P 500 was up 3.08 at 1066.19, 22 points off its low. The Nasdaq 100 gained 13.13 at 1746.12, about 34 points off its low.

The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index (SOXX) jumped 7.48 and was up more than 2 percent and helped thrust the Nasdaq 100 higher.

Advance-declines, which were steeply lower early, came all the way back on Nasdaq but failed to do on New York. Declines led advances by 430 issues on New York, but advancers led by 240 issues on Nasdaq. Up/down volume was 8 to 7 positive on New York on total volume of more than 1.5 billion. Nasdaq traded more than 2.7 billion and had a solid 19 to 8 positive volume ratio.

TheTechTrader.com board swung to the plus side, led by China Agritech (CAGC), which announced a 2 for 1 split. It ran 27.10 to 31.66, before setting at 31.21, up 3.75, a hefty percentage gain.

That was the only point-plus gainer, other than Direxion Financial Bull 3x Shares (FAS) which rallied 6 points to close up 1.91 at 65.51.

Telestone Technologies (TSTC) advanced 99 cents to 14.18 in a firming Chinese sector. RINO International (RINO) gained 71 cents to 19.92, SmartHeat (HEAT) 37 cents 11.19, Canadian Solar (CSIQ) 29 cents to 22.02.

Other stocks note, Human Genome Sciences (HGSI) was up 65 cents to 26.75 on takeover rumors, and Sourcefire (FIRE) up at 52 cents to 22.27.

On the downside, there were no point plus losers. Large fractional losses included China Automotive (CAAS), down 69 cents to 14.87. However, that was about 70 cents off its low.

Other than that, there were just small fractional losses.

In the ETF sector, the ultrashorts, which were sharply higher early, gave it all back and then some and closed down on the day. The Direxion Financial Bear 3x Shares (FAZ) fell 68 cents to 20.67, nearly 2 points off the high. The Direxion Small Cap 3x Bear (TZA), which had been at 11.85, closed at 11.12, down 14 cents, and the Direxion Large Cap Bear 3X Shares (BGZ), which had been as high as 20.28, closed at 19.09, down 14 cents.

The Direxion Daily Emerging Markets Bear 3X Shares (EDZ), up 18 cents at 6.58, managed to close positive despite being about 50 cents off its high.

Stepping back and reviewing the hourly chart patterns, very volatile session to close the week, as indices were down , up sharply, down and then up sharply again, closing near the session highs going away.

It was nice way to end the week for the bulls, although perhaps some late pre-weekend short covering. We’ll see what kind of follow-through we get on Monday.

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