The stock market indices staged a fantastic late rally in the afternoon, taking back all the morning losses from the sharp gap-down at the opening and downside follow-through early on.

In the morning they rallied and took back about 50% of these losses before rolling back to retest. But when that was successful they made higher lows and took off from there. The Nasdaq 100 rallied from 2012 to 2047, while the S&P 500 went from 1193 to 1210, closing very near the highs for the day going away. They actually closed back in the plus column, filling the entire big gaps to the downside they experienced early on.

Net on the day, the Dow was up 9.37 at 11,134.29, about 118 points off its low. The S&P 500 at 1208.67 was up 2.73, about 18 points off its low, and Nasdaq 100 at 2045.16 was up 10.63, a new high for 2010 and new rally high since the March '09 low as well. That was 43 points off its low earlier today, erasing a 33-point loss and adding on another 10.63.

Advance-declines ended about 2 to 1 positive on the New York Stock Exchange and a little less than that on Nasdaq. Up/down volume was quite positive today as well.

TheTechTrader.com board was mostly higher, but it was rather mixed, with quite a few stocks that never got back into the plus column. Leading the way today was American International Group (AIG) at 43.25 up 2.35, and Clean Energy Fuels (CLNE) at 20.54 up 1.07.

Delcath Systems (DCTH), despite closing at 12.93, up 2.08 on 12 1/2 million, disappointed because it reached as high as 14.47 earlier in the session. So it closed about 1.50 off its high, and actually not far off the session lows despite the big gains from the up-gap.

Las Vegas Sands Corp. (LVS), one of the leading stocks in a strong casino group, gained 72 cents to 24.43. MGM Mirage (MGM) closed up 65 cents, but was more than a dollar off its low at 15.74, and Wynn Resorts Ltd. (WYNN) closed sharply higher today at 89.95 up 4.02.

Other stocks of note: TiVo Inc. (TIVO) jumped 42 cents to 18.59, and Eastman Kodak Co. (EK) snapped back from 7.30 to 7.94, closing at 7.85 up 35 cents on 7 1/4 million.

The rest of the stocks that were up on our board were up just small fractions today.

On the downside, there were no point-plus losers. The fractional losers included the ultra-short ETFs, with the Direxion Daily Financial Bear 3x (FAZ) at 11.22 down 28 cents and the Direxion Daily Large Cap Bear 3x (BGZ) at 12.49 down 12 cents today.

RINO International (RINO) gave back 34 cents to 18.54 in a generally non-participating Chinese group, which also saw China Agritech (CAGC) lose 12 cents to 18.89.

Stepping back and reviewing the hourly chart patterns, the indices gapped down big today, fell sharply early on and then reversed, retested successfully and took off and rallied the rest of the day, closing not far off the session highs. A major reversal today on the indices, and with the NDX closing at new 2010 highs, it augurs well for future prices. However, despite the big rally on the SPX today, they did not take out their resistance high in the 1211-14 zone, closing at 1208.84. We'll see if that occurs tomorrow.

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