The stock market indices had a big day, as huge gaps spurred the market sharply higher at the opening. Early on they got to key overhead resistance at 1850 on the Nasdaq 100 and 1095 on the S&P 500, backed and filled the rest of the morning, and then consolidated in a bullish manner holding support.

In the early afternoon they took off, broke through resistance, retested, and then exploded in the last half hour, spiking into the session highs going away at the close.

Net on the day, the Dow was up 284.54 at 10,258.99, the S&P 500 up 35.11 at 1103.08, and the Nasdaq 100 up 66.24 at 1862.71. Even the OEX was up 3% today, up at 14.96 at 499.05.

The technicals were outstanding, by far one of the best ratios we’ve seen in a long time. Advance-declines were 2900 up and just 223 down on the New York Stock Exchange, and nearly 2400 up and 343 down on Nasdaq. Up/down volume was an astounding only 1.38 billion up and only 38 million down on New York. Nasdaq was an amazing 2.2 billion up and 97 million down on.

TheTechTrader.com board, as a result, was almost all higher today and most of the large-cap market leaders were up huge today. Leading the way was Google Inc. up 15.00 at 490.46, Baidu, Inc. (BIDU) up 5.91 at 73.50, and Cree Inc. (CREE) 4.06 at 69.10. Goldman Sachs (GS) gained an even 5.00 at 144.95, NetApp Inc. (NTAP) 5.74 at 38.17, Apple Inc. (AAPL) 9.24 at 253.35, Amazon.com 3.49 at 126.70, Las Vegas Sands (LVS) 2.18 at 23.83, and Xyratex (XRTX) 2.25 at 16.40.

Many other stocks were up more than a point, but are too numerous to mention here. However, low-priced FSI Internatiional (FSII) jumped to 4.04, up 1.29, a big percentage gain there.

On the downside, the ETFs got slammed hard today. The Direxion Daily Emerging Market Bear 3X Shares (EDZ) got crushed for 10.74 down to 48.19, the iPath S&P 500 VIX Short-Term Futures ETN (VXX) lost 2.70 to 28.33, and the Direxion Daily Financial Bear 3X Shares (FAZ) dropped 2.12 to 14.15.

So, it was a very strong day for the bulls, and the necklines on the inverse head-and-shoulder bottoming patterns were taken out today. The rally rolls on, and it should be an interesting Friday tomorrow before the upcoming 3-day holiday.

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