The stock market indices started out the day with a strong surge, and stair-stepped their way higher all day today. There was a late afternoon pullback, but in the last 15 or 20 minutes they spiked up again, closing at the highs for the day going away.

It was a very strong session and very strong trending day for the indices.

Net on the day, the Dow was up 145.13 at 12,188.69, the S&P 500 up 16.57 at 1296.67, and the Nasdaq 100 up 33.51 at 2285.75. All three indexes closed not far, if not right at, the highs for the day.

Advance-declines were 4 to 1 positive on the New York Stock Exchange, and about 3 to 1 positive on Nasdaq. Up/down volume was about 6 to 1 positive on New York on total volume of about 800 million shares. Nasdaq traded just under 1.7 billion and had about a 6 to 1 positive volume ratio.

TheTechTrader.com board was all up today, except for Goldman Sachs (GS), which was down 1.45 to 129.26.

Several ultra-short ETFs were also down. ProShares UltraShort DJ-UBS Crude Oil (SCO) was down 2.48 to 50.97, and Direxion Daily Small Cap Bear 3X Shares (TZA) 1.75 to 36.02, which makes sense since the market was so strongly trending higher today.

The biggest winner on our board today was LinkedIn Corporation Class A Co (LNKD) up 9.18 to 85.56. Youku.com Inc (YOKU) had a big day today, up 8.20 to 35.54. Orsus Xelent Technologies Inc. (ORS) rose 95 cents to 5.59, OmniVision Technologies Inc. (OVTI) 3.13 to 33.88, Allot Communications Ltd. (ALLT) 1.91 to 18.06, and Nanometrics Incorporated (NANO) 1.09 to 19.40.

Those were some of the highlights on the long side.

In addition, large-cap stocks had a good day with Apple Inc. (AAPL) up 3.22 to 335.26, International Business Machines Corp. (IBM) 2.39 to 170.01, Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN) 1.10 to 202.35, Chipotle Mexican Grill, Inc. (CMG) 3.26 to 304.72, and Google Inc. (GOOG) 10.85 to 493.65,

Among other stocks of note, SodaStream International Ltd. (SODA) jumped 2.28 to 59.55, Westport Innovations Inc. (WPRT) 2.49 to 24.00 even, and Nike Inc. (NKE) 8.28 to 89.90, which was one of our day trades.

Chinese stocks, in general, were strong for most of the session, but rolled over in the last hour to give back a lot of their gains.

Low-priced Genco Shipping & Trading Ltd. (GNK), up 51 cents to 8.08, was among other highlights.

Other gainers of note included Cubist Pharmaceuticals Inc. (CBST) up 1.14 to 36.81, Brigham Exploration Co. (BEXP) 1.15 to 29.14, MAKO Surgical Corp. (MAKO) 1.45 to 30.27, NXP Semiconductors NV (NXPI) 1.51 to 25.18, and Sequans Communications S.A. Ame (SQNS) 1.10 to 13.79.

Stepping back and reviewing the hourly chart patterns, the indices opened strong, kept going all day in a steady trend higher, only interrupted by an afternoon pullback, but that held at the moving averages and then bounced strongly into the close.

The indices has now reached key overhead resistance levels, so we’ll see if we can break through tomorrow. If that occurs, the bottom will be in and the indices can now start their summer rally.

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