The stock market indices closed the week with another gain, but had a strong afternoon sell-off and gave back a big chunk of the gains on late Friday afternoon profit-taking. They did bounce in the last 20 minutes back into the close to fortify the gains.

The day started out with a gap up, and then a quick pullback that held support. Then they rallied once again in a strong 3-wave move, reaching the new multi-session rally highs near 2359 on the NDX and just under 1338 on the S&P 500. At that point they backed off midday, consolidated and tried to bounce but couldn’t do much, and then rolled over sharply in the last 90 minutes. Again, they bounced back up in the last 20 minutes or so.

Net on the day, the Dow was up 56.99 at 12,376.72. The S&P 500 was up 6.58 at 1332.41. The Nasdaq 100 was up 3.93 at 2342.92.

Advance-declines were 21 to 9 positive on the New York Stock Exchange and only 14 to 11 positive on Nasdaq. Up/down volume was about 3 to 1 positive on New York on total volume of a light 870 million shares. Nasdaq traded more than 2 billion shares and was almost dead-even on advancing/declining volume.

TheTechTrader.com board was mostly higher with many solid gains today. Swing trade Westport Innovations Inc. (WPRT) jumped 2.02 to 24.00. Optimer Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (OPTR) advanced 1.30 to 13.13, Inhibitex Inc. (INHX) 1.11 to 4.73, and swing trade ION Geophysical Corporation (IO) 86 cents to 13.55. Local.com Corp. (LOCM) was up 50 cents to 4.39, making its move late in the day.

In addition, Avalon Rare Metals, Inc. Ordina (AVL) had a big day, crossing 9.00 at one point, but closing at 8.95, up 86 cents, a nice percentage gain there.

Among the point-plus gainers of note, SodaStream International Ltd. (SODA) was up 2.99 to 46.80, and Travelzoo Inc. (TZOO) 2.93 to 69.52, reaching over 70 today. VirnetX Holding Corp (VHC) was up 1.34 to 21.25, Patriot Coal Corporation (PCX) 1.03 to 26.86, InterMune Inc. (ITMN) 1.30 to 48.49, Home Inns & Hotels Management Inc. (HMIN) 1.93 to 41.50, International Business Machines Corp. (IBM) 1.20 to 164.27, Goldman Sachs (GS) 1.63 to 160.23, and Chipotle Mexican Grill, Inc. (CMG) 1.63 to 274.00.

Other gainers included Dynamic Materials Corp. (BOOM) up 1.11 to 29.07, swing trade Harry Winston Diamond Corporation (HWD) 53 cents to 16.71, IDT Corporation (IDT) 86 cents to 27.81, and OmniVision Technologies Inc. (OVTI) 66 cents to 36.19.

On the downside, Apple Inc. (AAPL) lost 3.95 to 344.56, and Ultratech, Inc. (UTEK) dropped 1.48 to 27.92 after yesterday’s big gain. Those were the only point-plus loser on our board today.

Stepping back and reviewing the hourly chart patterns, the indices were up sharply in the morning to new rally highs, and then rolled over in the afternoon only to bounce into the close with more gains for the day and a very solid gain for the week.

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