The stock market indices had another up day as the rally continued. Starting out with a gap up, they ran sharply higher until mid-morning when they paused. At that point they resumed the advance, reaching the session highs just before noon. They then sold off early afternoon, bounced back sharply to retest the highs, but fell short and then rolled over in the last hour.

Net on the day, however, they closed positive, with the Dow up 46.32 at 10,387.01, about 40 points off its high. The S&P 500 was up 7.03 at 1098.87, about 5 points off its high. The Nasdaq 100 gained 23.50 to 1880, with a high of over 1887.

Advance-declines were 21 to 9 positive on the New York Stock Exchange and about 2 to 1 positive on Nasdaq. Up/down volume was about 3 to 1 positive on New York with total volume of about 815 million shares, rather light today. Nasdaq, however, traded about 2 billion shares, and had about a 2 1/2 to 1 positive ratio.

TheTechTrader.com board, as a result, was mostly higher. Leading the way today was Apple Inc. (AAPL), up 5.11 to 262.92. Goldman Sachs (GS) advanced 2.33 to 147.54, Dendreon Corp. (DNDN) 1.61 to 41.84, BP Exploration plc (BP) 1.18 to 38.37, Acme Packet, Inc. (APKT) 1.22 to 37.28, and Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN) 1.92 to 139.14.

In addition, ARM Holdings PLC (ARMH) was up 1.24 to 18.09, Netezza Corporation (NZ) 2.63 to 23.97, Sycamore Networks Inc. (SCMR) 95 cents to 28.84, and MGM Resorts International (MGM) 65 cents to 10.22.

Among other gainers of note, Spreadtrum Communications Inc. (SPRD) jumped 55 cents to 11.92, Transocean Ltd. (RIG) 69 cents to 53.94, and ADTRAN Inc. (ADTN) 68 cents to 32.85.

On the downside, loss leaders included Boxer Short Cree Inc. (CREE), which got hammered for another 4.42 to 50.18, dipping under 50 for the first time in many months. That was by far the loss leader today.

Other losses of note, China Agritech Inc. (CAGC) on the downgrade fell 2.59 to 13.29, a big percentage loss there. OmniVision Technologies Inc. (OVTI) dropped 92 cents to 20.08, and the ETF Direxion Daily Emrg Mkts Bear 3X Shares (EDZ) was down 1.10 to 33.23.

Stepping back and reviewing the hourly chart patterns, the indices gapped up at the opening, ran sharply all morning, and reached their peak by mid-day. They pulled back in the afternoon and bounced, but fell short of their highs, and then rolled over into the close to pare back the gains.

It was still a positive day for the indices with good technicals as the rally continues. The only negative right now is that despite the new highs for the rally on the Nasdaq 100, the S&P 500 has failed to make new highs and to confirm, causing a potential negative divergence.

We’ll see what that means going forward.

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