A rally hit Wall Street today as the stock market indices gapped up big at the opening and ran sharply in the morning, reaching 2390 on the Nasdaq 100 and 1320 on the S&P 500. They then backed off, consolidated for 2-3 hours and by early afternoon rallied again. They broke out and stair-stepped their way higher, reaching 2400 NDX and 1328 on the S&P 500 before backing off a little bit, but in the last five minutes snapped off to close with a very firm day.

Net on the day, the Dow was up 202.26 at 12,587.43, the S&P 500 up 21.29 at 1326.73, and the Nasdaq 100 up 54.16 at 2398.17.

Very strong technicals confirmed the move as well, with advance-declines almost 4 to 1 positive on the New York Stock Exchange and about 4 to 1 positive on Nasdaq as well. Up/down volume was nearly 6 to 1 positive on New York with total volume of 865 million shares traded, and Nasdaq traded about 1.85 billion shares and had about a 5 1/2 to 1 positive volume ratio.

TheTechTrader.com had a very big day today. Leading the way, InterDigital, Inc. (IDCC), which we traded today, was up 11.75 to 53.26. Low-priced New Energy Systems Group (NEWN) had a big session, running up to 4.25 at one point, closing up 1.63 to 3.93, or 71%.

Junior oils were strong today. PetroQuest Energy Inc. (PQ) advanced 1.17 to 8.32. Clean Diesel Technologies Inc. (CDTI) up 60 cents to 7.15, Coffee Holding Co.Inc. (JVA) 1.84 to 23.42, and Hansen Medical, Inc. (HNSN) 44 cents to 4.83.

Among other gainers of note, Apple Inc. (AAPL) gained 3.05 to 376.85, Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN) 6.53 to 218.06, International Business Machines Corp. (IBM) 9.93 to 185.21 on excellent earnings, VirnetX Holding Corp (VHC) 1.53 to 37.21, MAKO Surgical Corp. (MAKO) 1.95 to 32.24, LSB Industries Inc. (LXU) 1.90 to 45.48, Golar LNG Ltd. (GLNG) 1.50 to 39.15, and Global Crossing Ltd. (GLBC) 1.46 to 37.29.

In addition, we had some strong percentage gains. Leading the way was Kandi Technologies, Corp (KNDI) up 47 cents to 2.45, or 24%, on 1.3 million traded. Harley-Davidson, Inc. (HOG) jumped 3.70 to 45.11, or 9%, and Abraxas Petroleum Corp. (AXAS) added 62 cents to 4.97, or 14%, on over 5 million shares.

On the downside there were just a few losers. SodaStream International Ltd. (SODA) lost 3.04 to 69.65, and Rediff.com India Ltd. (REDF) was down 1.46 to 12.48, which are two of our recent favorites, certainly undergoing profit taking today. Goldman Sachs (GS) dropped 84 cents to 128.49, about 3 points off its low.

In addition, ultra-short ETFs got hammered. The Direxion Daily Financial Bear 3X Shares (FAZ) was down 1.90 to 47.81, the Direxion Daily Small Cap Bear 3X Shares (TZA) 2.39 to 33.24, and iPath S&P 500 VIX Short-Term Futures ETN (VXX) lost 1.12 to 22.52.

Stepping back and reviewing the hourly chart patterns, it was a very strong stair-step session with the indices gapping up and running hard, consolidating for half a day and then running again in the afternoon, flagging near the close and then spiking into the close with a very strong 200 plus day on the Dow.

The market had strong volume, good technicals, and an excellent close, as the key declining topsline and channels were broken today along with moving averages.

We’ll see if we can follow-through. There will be some overhead resistance to test just above here, so we may get a pullback retest in the next day or two.

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