The indices had an excellent day for the bulls, as they gapped up big, blew through initial resistance and kept running, reaching 1870 on the Nasdaq 100 and 1097 area on the S&P 500. Over the next few hours, they pulled back, bounced again, couldn't get through, and then backed off late in the session, but in the last 15-20 minutes came on again to finish with strong gains.

Net on the day, the Dow was up 201.77 at 10,322.30, the S&P 500 up 24.08 at 1093.67, and the Nasdaq 100 up 45.80 at 1863.10.

Advance declines were 6 1/2 to 1 positive on New York on volume of under 1.2 billion, but the plurality of up volume to down volume was 10 to 1 positive. Nasdaq advance-declines were about 5 to 1 positive, but up/down volume was more than 6 to 1 positive on 2.2 billion shares traded.

TheTechTrader.com board was nearly all higher, with just a couple stocks down. Transocean (RIG) dropped 1.08 to 46.67 and Goldman Sachs (GS) lost 44 cents to 146.55. But that was it.

Leading the way to the upside, Google (GOOG) was up 7.31 to 484.81, Apple (AAPL) 4.78 to 259.02, Isilon Systems (ISLN) up 2.82 to 16.38, Cree Inc. (CREE) 3.82 to 70.88, Amazon (AMZN) 2.64 to 120.07, Adtran (ADTN) up 1.24 to 32.08, Acme Packet (APKT) 1.66 to 31.58, China Agritech (CAGC) 1.02 to 11.84, IBM 2.20 to 127.47, IDT Corp. (IDT) up 1.55 to 16.90, OmniVision (OVTI) 1.39 to 23.55, Valassis Communications (VCI) 2.17 to 30.55, andWestport Innovations (WPRT) up 1 to 18.90.

In addition, the Direxion Daily Financial Bull 3X Shares (FAS) was up 1.69 to 21.49.

On the downside, the ultrashort ETFs got hammered, as would be expected. The Direxion Daily Small Cap Bear 3X Shares (TZA) dropped 4.15 to 34.62, Direxion Daily Emerging Markets (EDZ) 3.53 to 37.11, the Direxion Daily Large Cap Bear 3X Shares (BGZ) 1.09 at 14.96, and te Direxion Daily Financial Bear 3X Shares (FAZ) 1.36 to 14.62, with the iPath S&P 500 VIX Short-Term Futures ETN (VXX) down 1.33 to 24.07.

Stepping back and reviewing the hourly chart patterns, the indices made key moves today, but did not get confirmation from the S&P 500. The Nasdaq 100 took out the highs from the last couple weeks, reaching up to 1870 twice today, but couldn’t get through there. The SPX reached as high as 1097.50, but was unable to get through the1099-1100 range.

We’ll be watching to see if we can get a follow-through tomorrow.

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