The week started off with a bang. The stock market indices had big up-gaps at the opening, ran hard in the morning, reached their sessions highs by about 11:00, and drifted down into early afternoon. They bounced in mid-afternoon, but couldn’t take out highs, and then backed off.

Still, net on the day, the Dow was up 178.01 at 12,036.53, closing back over 12,000. The S&P 500 closed up 19.18 at 1298.38, and tagged 1300.58 at one point. That was resistance, and no surprise that it backed off there, but still held up pretty well considering it closed only 2 points off the high. The Nasdaq 100 was up 41.63 at 2262.70, about 11 points off its high.

Advance-declines were nearly 5 to 1 positive on the New York Stock Exchange, and nearly 4 to 1 positive on Nasdaq. Up/down volume was 3 to 1 positive on New York on total volume of just about 1 billion shares traded. Nasdaq traded 1.7 billion shares with a 4 1/2 to 1 positive volume ratio.

TheTechTrader.com board had a fantastic day, with many point-plus gainers today. Leading the way was Apple Inc. (AAPL) up 8.63 to 339.30, Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN) up 2.70 to 164.53, OmniVision Technologies Inc. (OVTI) up 2.00 to 31.66, and Travelzoo Inc. (TZOO) 3.55 to 49.87.

Oil stocks were firm today, with Brigham Exploration Co. (BEXP) up 1.70 to 35.57, and Northern Oil and Gas, Inc. (NOG) 1.19 to 29.44. Gold and silver stocks were generally strong across the board.

Other stocks of note included low-priced Prana Biotechnology Ltd. (PRAN), a biotech with a promising Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s drug, which was presented at the 10th International Conference on Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s diseases today. It was up 1.23 at 2.70, an 83.67% gain on massive volume for that stock. New Energy Systems Group (NEWN) was up 1.27 at 5.44, a 30.46% gain, SunPower Corporation (SPWRA) 74 cents to 16.11, and FormFactor Inc. (FORM) 1.25 to 9.89.

Flotek Industries Inc. (FTK) jumped 46 cents to 7.35, Spreadtrum Communications Inc. (SPRD) snapped back 80 cents to 19.29, and IDT Corporation (IDT) was up 84 cents to 24.53.

In addition, InterDigital, Inc. (IDCC) was up 1.37 to 43.38, and Ebix Inc. (EBIX) up 1.39 to 29.45.

On the downside, the ultra-short ETFs got hammered today. The iPath S&P 500 VIX Short-Term Futures ETN (VXX) was down 2.69 at 32.67, the Direxion Daily Small Cap Bear 3X Shares (TZA) down 2.89 to 39.37, and the Direxion Daily Large Cap Bear 3X Shares (BGZ) down 1.87 to 38.22. The Direxion Daily Financial Bear 3X Shares (FAZ) also lost 1.03 at 41.12.

Stepping back and reviewing the hourly chart patterns, the indices gapped up and broke out of their down trend, had a strong early morning run, and then backed off to consolidate in a constructive manner.

It sure looks like they want to try higher levels. We’ll see what happens tomorrow.

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