The stock market indices had another excellent up-day today, although the road to those gains was a bit choppy. The session started with a gap up and a nice follow-through of yesterday’s gains. However, the indices pulled back immediately and started a morning decline. After reaching as high as nearly 1806 on the Nasdaq 100, the index got down below 1780, while the S&P 500 went from 1071 down to about the 1059 area. They then bounced mid-day, but could not get through initial resistance, backed off to retest, but that was successful, and then towards the last hour and a half they came on again, closing at the afternoon highs and not far from the session highs on the SPX and a little below them on the NDX.

Net on the day, the Dow was up another 120.71 at 10,138.99, the S&P 500 up 9.98 at 1070.25, and the Nasdaq 100 8.59 at 1798.31.

Advance/declines were better than 3 to 1 positive on the New York Stock Exchange and a little more than 2 to 1 positive on Nasdaq. Up/down volume was 4 1/2 to 1 positive on New York and about 3 to 1 positive on Nasdaq. Total volume on New York was under 1.2 billion and Nasdaq traded just a little over 2 billion shares today.

TheTechTrader.com board, as a result of today’s action, was mostly higher. Leading the way today were some of the large-cap stocks like Google Inc. (GOOG), up 6.36 at 456.56, and Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN), up 2.79 to 116.22. Dendreon Corp. (DNDN) snapped back 1.21 at 30.30, and VIVUS Inc. (VVUS) advanced 1.02 to 11.69 on heavy volume.

Other stocks of note, portfolio position L&L Energy, Inc. (LLEN) gained 58 cents to 9.34, RINO International Corporation (RINO) gained 35 cents to 13.31, Trina Solar Ltd. (TSL) 41 cents to 20.96, Isilon Systems, Inc. (ISLN) 67 cents to 13.60, portfolio position IDT Corporation (IDT) 47 cents to 15.00, China Agritech Inc. (CAGC) 55 cents to 11.19, China Automotive Systems Inc. (CAAS) 41 cents to 17.21, and Amylin Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (AMLN) 43 cents to 18.95.

The ultra-long ETF Direxion Daily Financial Bull 3X Shares (FAS) gained 46 cents to 21.04.

The rest of the ETFs had a down day, with the Direxion Daily Small Cap Bear 3X Shares (TZA) leading the way. After a reverse 5 to 1 split, the TZA closed down 1.85 at 38.35. The iPath S&P 500 VIX Short-Term Futures ETN (VXX) was down 66 cents at 26.24, and the Direxion Daily Financial Bear 3X Shares (FAZ) down 36 cents at 15.52.

Stepping back and reviewing the hourly chart patterns, the indices opened strong, but then stair-stepped their way lower in a 5-wave decline that eventually bottomed with a late morning bottom and an afternoon double-bottom that resulted in a late surge up near the session highs on the S&P 500.

Another strong close for the indices today as the snapback rally continues.

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