The stock market indices had a fantastic follow-through session. The day started out with a little bit of a pop and then a pullback. The initial pullback held support on both indices, and then they ran sharply higher, reaching as high as 2165 on the Nasdaq 100 and 1134 on the S&P 500, before pulling back again. That was the steepest pullback of the day, and it held the initial pullback lows earlier, which was a signal that they were going higher. They rallied across 2180 NDX and up towards 1140 SPX, and then in the last half hour they popped through those levels and reached 2188 and 1145 and change, respectively, on those indices. They closed off those highs, but not by much.

Net on the day, the Dow was up 131.24 at 10,939.95, the S&P 500 up 20.09 at 1144.04, and the Nasdaq 100 up 53.56 at 2182.77.

Advance-declines were nearly 3 to 1 positive on the New York Stock Exchange, and little more than 2 to 1 positive on Nasdaq. Up/down volume was better than 5 to 1 positive on New York, with total volume of just under 1.2 billion shares traded today. Nasdaq traded more than 2.4 billion shares and had an 8 to 1 positive volume ratio.

So, as you can see, it was a very strong day on Wall Street today. A total reversal from just two days ago.

TheTechTrader.com board, as a result, was mostly higher. There were quite a few point-plus gainers today. Leading the way, Apple Inc. (AAPL) was up 5.75 to 378.25, International Business Machines Corp. (IBM) jumped 2.11 to 176.85, Netflix, Inc. (NFLX) up 4.86 to 119.76, SodaStream International Ltd. (SODA) 1.07 to 32.83, VirnetX Holding Corp (VHC) 1.67 to 15.78, Universal Display Corp. (PANL) 1.26 to 45.35, InterDigital, Inc. (IDCC) 1.05 to 49.76, Brigham Exploration Co. (BEXP) 1.87 to 26.00, and Aruba Networks, Inc. (ARUN) 1.35 to 22.83.

First Solar, Inc. (FSLR) was up 3.09 to 60.87 in a strong solar group today.

In addition, Yahoo! Inc. (YHOO) jumped 1.46 to 15.92, on Microsoft take-over news. Mitek Systems Inc. (MITK) was up 65 cents to 9.70, and Research In Motion Limited (RIMM) 2.59 to 23.59.

The coal group was strong today. James River Coal Co. (JRCC) was up 1.05 to 7.51 in a strong coal sector, as was Patriot Coal Corporation (PCX), up 1.12 to 9.58.

On the downside, other than the ultra-shorts, there were only small fractional losers on the board today.

The ultra-shorts had another bad day today. The VelocityShares Daily 2x VIX ST ETN (TVIX) was down 8.80 to 78.01, down from 109 yesterday. The Direxion Daily Small Cap Bear 3X Shares (TZA) dropped 2.03 to 47.56, the Direxion Daily Financial Bear 3X Shares (FAZ) fell 2.38 to 64.28, and the Direxion Daily Large Cap Bear 3X Shares (BGZ) lost 2.81 to 44.37.

Stepping back and reviewing the hourly chart patterns, the indices had a wonderful follow-through rally today after some brief pause and hesitation this morning. They took off, pulled back midday, rallied early afternoon, pulled back mid-afternoon, and then ran up again in a beautiful 5-wave advance into the close, and closed up on the session.

It was a beautiful follow-through day and perhaps a definitive signal that at least a short-term bottom is in. Let’s see how it goes tomorrow.

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