The stock market indices had another up day and closed the week out on the plus side. The day started out, however, with some choppiness and some testing. They did take a dip twice in the morning, but held support, bounced back in a 3-wave rally, and reached the session highs just before noon. They pulled back during the lunch hour, then came on early afternoon, but could not get through the highs,forming double tops. But they were also not able to do much damage to the downside, although they did back off the highs.

Net on the day, the Dow was up 125.71 at 11,269.02, the S&P 500 up 6.17 to 1178.81, and the Nasdaq 100 up 14.98 to 2182.05.

Advance-declines were a little less than 2 to 1 positive on the New York Stock Exchange, and Nasdaq was ahead by only 114 issues. Up/down volume was 7 to 4 positive on New York on total volume of 1.2 billion shares, and Nasdaq traded 2.2 billion shares and had a 14 to 8 positive volume ratio.

TheTechTrader.com board was mixed, but there were quite a few large gainers. Leading the way today was Molycorp, Inc. (MCP) up 4.76 to 58.90, MAKO Surgical Corp. (MAKO) up 3.36 to 31.75, and InterDigital, Inc. (IDCC) 4.36 to 75.72. SodaStream International Ltd. (SODA) was up 2.33 to 47.89, and Apple Inc. (AAPL) 3.29 to 276.99.

In addition, International Business Machines Corp. (IBM) jumped 1.47 to 168.20, Tesla Motors, Inc. (TSLA) 1.01 to 26.31, Sky-mobi Limited (MOBI) 1.09 to 6.39, or 21.5%, and low-priced XOMA Ltd. (XOMA) 55 cents to 2.00 even, or 38%.

Among other gainers of note, Mistras Group, Inc. (MG) was up 1.24 to 18.99, DG FastChannel, Inc. (DGIT) 1.27 to 20.31, ZOLL Medical Corp. (ZOLL) 4.23 to 47.68, F5 Networks, Inc. (FFIV) 5.82 to 81.94, Lululemon Athletica Inc. (LULU) 4.32 to 58.15, and Bottomline Technologies Inc. (EPAY) 2.26 to 22.75.

On the downside, point-plus losers included Coffee Holding Co.Inc. (JVA) down 1.09 to 17.96, Goldman Sachs (GS) 1.63 to 116.47, and VirnetX Holding Corp (VHC) 1.01 to 17.69.

Stepping back and reviewing the hourly chart patterns, the indices were down early, but then rallied in a 3-wave advance. They pulled back and double-topped on the Nasdaq 100 and the S&P 500 before pulling back late in the session, but in an orderly decline that basically held onto the majority of the session’s gains to end out the week on a positive note.

We’ll see what kind of follow-through, if any, the market gets next week.

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