The stock market indices ended the day with a bang, gapping up sharply, and running hard early on positive economic news. Then they settled into a sideways consolidation for a couple hours, and by midday broke out once more to more session highs at 2165 on the Nasdaq 100 and 1198 on the S&P 500. They then pulled back, backed and filled, and tried to come on again late in the session, with the SPX acting even stronger than the NDX and closing near the session high.

Net on the day, the Dow was up 150.91 at 11,187.28, about 8 points off the session high. The S&P 500 was up 17.62 at 1198.35, just pennies off its high, and Nasdaq 100 was up 43.91 at 2160.52, about 5 points off its high.

Technicals were very strong today. Advance-declines were 5 to 1 positive on the New York Stock Exchange, and about 4 to 1 positive on Nasdaq. Up/down volume on New York was about 12 to 1 positive, with light total volume of just over 800 million shares. Nasdaq traded about 1 1/2 billion shares, and had about an 8 to 1 positive plurality.

TheTechTrader.com board, as a result, was vastly higher and had a massive day today. Leading the way today was Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN) up 9.05 to 177.25, and Apple Inc. (AAPL) up 6.07 to 314.80. Goldman Sachs (GS) jumped 2.48 to 160.26, Coinstar Inc. (CSTR) 2.89 to 66.98, Cree Inc. (CREE) 5.95 to 64.45, Acme Packet, Inc. (APKT) 2.10 to 45.74, SodaStream International Ltd. (SODA) 2.35 to 41.21, Sina Corp. (SINA) 2.15 to 62.10, Cameco Corp. (CCJ) 1.98 to 37.17, and Guess? Inc. (GES) 4.78 to 50.12.

Lower-priced stocks also were strong, with China Digital TV Holding Co., Ltd. (STV) up 1.29 to 9.00, Almaden Minerals Ltd. (AAU) 90 cents to 3.82, TransGlobe Energy Corp. (TGA) 1.41 to 16.86, Tiffany & Co. (TIF) 3.07 to 61.34, and Travelzoo Inc. (TZOO) 1.58 to 39.92. Ariba (ARBA) advanced 1.31 to 21.07, IMAX Corporation (IMAX) 1.17 to 26.35, IPG Photonics Corporation (IPGP) 1.75 to 28.95, JinkoSolar Holding Co., Ltd. (JKS) 1.69 to 27.16, and PharmAthene, Inc. (PIP) 60 cents to 3.83.

There were many others, too numerous to mention, on the plus side today. But some of our old favorites came to life today. Fuel-Tech, Inc. (FTEK) broke out of a one-year base pattern today, closing up 47 cents, almost 7%, to 7.36, a significant day there. Kandi Technologies Corp (KNDI) jumped 44 cents to 5.92, and Sigma Designs, Inc. (SIGM) came to life today, up 43 cents to 12.23.

The ultra-short ETFs obviously got hammered. The iPath S&P 500 VIX Short-Term Futures ETN (VXX) was down 1.71 to 43.16, the Direxion Daily Small Cap Bear 3X Shares (TZA) 1.39 to 19.17, and the Direxion Daily Emrg Mkts Bear 3X Shares (EDZ) 1.75 to 23.67.

Other than that any other losses on our board were just small fractional losses for the most part. The indices had a stellar day today, a strong pre-holiday day indeed.

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