The stock market indices managed to hold onto morning gains in the afternoon, with a bullish consolidation and late snapback that closed them not far off the session highs, ending with a rather nice session.

Net on the day, the Dow closed just a hair below 11,500 at 11,499.25, up 41.78, which was 15 points off the high earlier in the day. The S&P 500 was up 7.64 at 1242.87, about 1 point off its high. The Nasdaq 100 was up 15.57 at 2218.02, nearly 4 points off its high.

Advance-declines were greater than 2 to 1 positive on the New York Stock Exchange and even better than that on Nasdaq. Up/down volume was nearly 3 to 1 negative on New York with total volume of just under 1 billion shares . Nasdaq traded 1.7 billion and had a 3 1/2 to 1 positive volume ratio.

TheTechTrader.com board was mostly higher, with several point-plus gainers today. Leading the way was Aeropostale, Inc. (ARO), up 2.04 to 25.61. Acme Packet, Inc. (APKT) jumped 2.75 to 55.79, Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN) 2.47 to 178.04, and Ciena (CIEN) 1.57 to 20.86. Cyberonics Inc. (CYBX) gained 1.55 to 34.11, Molycorp, Inc. (MCP) snapped back 1.45 to 38.43, and Kindred Healthcare Inc. (KND) added 1.62 to 19.18.

Other gainers included Aceto Corp. (ACET) up 70 cents to 8.90. EXLS advanced 42 cents to 3.44, and Magic Software Enterprises Ltd. (MGIC) 48 cents to 7.67. Motricity, Inc. (MOTR) snapped back 80 cents to 19.16. Spreadtrum Communications Inc. (SPRD) closed up another 57 cents to 17.34, China Digital TV Holding Co., Ltd. (STV) up 46 cents to 8.78, AudioCodes (AUDC) 30 cents to 6.17, and China Technology Development Group Corporation (CTDC) 30 cents to 2.80.

Those were some of the highlights in the lower-priced sector.

On the downside, there were only small fractional losses, nothing even approaching a dollar. The iPath S&P 500 VIX Short-Term Futures ETN (VXX) dropped 78 cents to 39.01, and Cree Inc. (CREE) gave back 61 cents to 66.75.

Stepping back and reviewing the hourly chart patterns, the indices took an early dip at the get-go, with the S&P 500 reaching new pullback lows. But the Nasdaq 100 did not confirm, which contributed to a strong snapback that took the NDX from 2199 up to 2221 and the SPX from 1233 up to 1243. The indices then backed and filled in the afternoon only to come on late in the session to prop up the gains a little bit and close with solid gains on good technicals.

The bears had a chance to take control here, but so far have not been able to do so as the bulls move back into control today. We’ll see if we can get a follow-through tomorrow, which is options-expiration day.

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