The stock market indices had a very interesting, volatile day with a gap up and a quick pop to resistance which failed, and then rolled over very sharply at that point and reached the session lows after about an hour of trading. At that point the Nasdaq 100 was around 2183 and the S&P 500 just under 1220. A 5-wave advance ensued for the rest of the session, and the indices ended up spiking up into the close, closing near the session highs going away, right at key resistance. Still, they managed to move into the plus column and end up positive on the session.

Net on the day, the Dow was up 13.32 at 11,372.48. The S&P 500 was up 4.53 at 1228.28, and the Nasdaq 100 up 11.25 at 2200.60.

Advance-declines on the New York Stock Exchange, however, were 3 to 2 negative and up/down volume 3 to 2 positive. Total volume on New York was 1.1 billion shares traded. Nasdaq traded about 1.75 billion and had about a 10 to 7 positive ratio on advancing volume over declining volume, but advance-declines were almost dead even flat. So, very unusual statistics today.

TheTechTrader.com board was interesting today in the fact that two major Chinese IPOs debuted and had spectacular sessions. YOUKU.COM (YOKU), the equivalent of YouTube on China, apparently, came in at 12.80, and closed up 20.64 at 33.44 on very heavy volume. E-COMMERCE CHINA DANGDANG INC. (DANG), which is e-commerce China equivalent of Amazon, came out at 16, closed at 29.91, up 13.91 on very heavy volume as well.

VIVUS Inc. (VVUS) jumped 1.20 to 9.00, and Orexigen Therapeutics, Inc. (OREX) was up 3.90 to 8.77, but traded as high as 11.15 earlier in the day, so it sold way off its high. Still, a pretty big day for it.

In addition, Apple Inc. (AAPL) jumped 2.80 to 321.01, and closed within a penny of its high for the day. Goldman Sachs (GS) had a big day, up 4.55 to 166.14, and also closed at its high for the day.

Other gainers of note, Polypore International Inc. (PPO) was up 2.10 to 43.09, and many other stocks were up smaller fractions, but those are the significant winners.

On the downside, the only point-plus losers was Brigham Exploration Co. (BEXP) which was downgraded today, down 1.12 to 26.34, except for the iPath S&P 500 VIX Short-Term Futures ETN (VXX), down 1.10 to 39.05.

Stepping back and reviewing the hourly chart patterns, the indices gapped up at the opening, sold off sharply, and then had a 5-wave advance for the rest of the session closing at session highs going away and near key resistance.

We’ll see if we can get an upside follow-through, or whether resistance proves futile and they roll them back down.

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