The stock market indices started off the week with an up day, and with decent technicals confirming it as well. However, volume was lighter today.

The day started out with a move down that tested Friday’s low on the Nasdaq 100 and the S&P 500, which was successful. When that occurred they bounced and rallied sharply, with the Nasdaq 100 rallying nearly 30 points and the SPX about 11 points. By noon they hit their session highs, and then backed off in a 5-wave decline that severely tested initial support, broke it on the Nasdaq 100, but held it on the SPX. That positive divergence enabled them to snap back in the last hour to close positive on the session.

Net on the day, the Dow was up 68.23 at 11,891.93, the S&P 500 up 9.78 at 1286.12, and the Nasdaq 100 was up 11.40 at 2281.91.

Advance-declines were about 21 to 9 positive on the New York Stock Exchange, and about 15 to 11 positive on Nasdaq. Up/down volume was a little better than 2 to 1 positive on New York on total volume just under 1.2 billion. Nasdaq traded about 1.75 billion shares and had about an 11 to 6 positive ratio.

TheTechTrader.com board was mixed but mostly higher. There were quite a few point-plus gainers and several point-plus losers as well.

On the plus side, low-priced leaders included NPS Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NPSP) up 2.40 to 10.01, a 32% gain. DepoMed Inc. (DEPO) gained 2.14 to 8.38, or 34%, and Clinical Data, Inc. (CLDA) 2.36 to 29.72, continuing last week’s advance. Polypore International Inc. (PPO) was up 2.08 to 48.11, AsiaInfo-Linkage,Inc. (ASIA) 3.05 to 21.46, Thomas & Betts Corp. (TNB) 4.08 to 51.36, SodaStream International Ltd. (SODA) 3.21 to 42.90, and Sina Corp. (SINA) 4.51 to 85.25.

Other gainers of note included Advanced Energy Industries, Inc. (AEIS) up 64 cents to 15.45, CommVault Systems, Inc. (CVLT) up 99 cents to 30.89, Orexigen Therapeutics, Inc. (OREX) 76 cents to 9.08, Optical Cable Corp. (OCCF) 43 cents to 6.10, Oplink Communications Inc. (OPLK) 1.01 to 24.78, Sunrise Senior Living Inc. (SRZ) 53 cents to 7.99, and TeleNav, Inc. (TNAV) 1.54 to 10.49.

There were quite a few gainers in the oil patch today. Alon USA Energy, Inc. (ALJ) jumped 67 cents to 7.81, Double Eagle Petroleum Co. (DBLE) 49 cents to 7.78, BPZ Resources, Inc. (BPZ) 53 cents to 5.74, Cobalt International Energy, Inc. (CIE) 74 cents to 13.54, Frontier Oil Corp. (FTO) 1.02 to 20.79, US Energy Corp. (USEG) 34 cents to 6.06, Gulfport Energy Corp. (GPOR) 2.63 to 23.94, Gran Tierra Energy, Inc. (GTE) 43 cents to 8.97, Cheniere Energy, Inc. (LNG) 96 cents to 7.30, Northern Oil and Gas, Inc. (NOG) 1.30 to 27.53, Oasis Petroleum Inc. (OAS) 1.78 to 31.98, and Brigham Exploration Co. (BEXP) 98 cents to 29.61.

Among other gainers of note, Apple Inc. (AAPL) advanced 3.22 to 339.32, and Goldman Sachs (GS) 1.85 to 163.62. Those were the point-plus gainers on our board today as well as the junior oils.

On the downside, Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN) lost 1.50 to 169.64, China MediaExpress Holdings, Inc. (CCME) got hammered for 3.02 to 17.84, and Ciena (CIEN) lost 1.47 to 22.03.

Stepping back and reviewing the hourly chart patterns, the indices were down early, but rallied sharply in the morning to reach the session highs by midday, pulled back and gave back half of the gains, but then snapped back to gain back a majority of that pullback. They then closed not too far off the session highs on the S&P 500 and Dow, with the Dow closing right at the high for the day.

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