The stock market indices had a solid up session at the close, but it was whippy and volatile today. They gapped up sharply at the opening, pulled back much more steeply so on the Nasdaq 100, and then came on again to reach the session highs late morning with the NDX just below 2230 and the S&P 500 at around 1242. They rolled over fairly hard to new pullback lows and new session lows on the NDX just under 2300. The S&P 500 held around 1226. After they double-bottomed early afternoon they were able to come back up in a steady run to retest the highs, but fell short, and closed up with a solid gainer on the day.

Net on the day, the Dow was up 178.08 at 11,836.04, the S&P 500 up 19.62 at 1237.90, and the Nasdaq 100 up 19.95 at 2318.32.

Advance-declines were about 3 1/2 to 1 positive on the New York Stock Exchange, and a little less than 4 to 1 positive on Nasdaq. Up/down volume was 5 to 1 positive on New York, with total volume of 960 million shares traded today. Nasdaq traded just under 1.9 billion shares and had a 13 to 5 positive volume ratio.

TheTechTrader.com board, for the most part, had a very solid session today. The vast majority of the stocks were up. Leading the way today was swing trade Silicon Motion Technology Corp. (SIMO), which jumped 3.48 to 19.25 after earnings. Accretive Health, Inc. (AH) rose 3.87 to 26.90, hhgregg, Inc. (HGG) 1.88 to 14.01, and Leap Wireless International Inc. (LEAP) 38 cents to 8.09.

In addition, low-priced Sino-Global Shipping America, Ltd. (SINO) was up 1.43 to 3.11, or 85%; Phoenix Companies Inc. (PNX) 34 cents to 1.70, or 25%; Huntsman Corporation (HUN) 1.60 to 12.59, or 15%; and Force Protection Inc. (FRPT) 48 cents to 3.96, or 14% on contract news. Merge Healthcare Incorporated (MRGE) gained 75 cents to 6.82, Sourcefire, Inc. (FIRE) 2.87 to 29.89, Finisar Corp. (FNSR) 2.09 to 21.47, and WellCare Health Plans, Inc. (WCG), a stock we traded today, 5.33 to 52.96. Clean Harbors, Inc. (CLH) added 2.34 to 67.98.

Other gainers of note included Goldman Sachs (GS) up 2.59 to 106.13, International Business Machines Corp. (IBM) up 2.57 to 183.92, Molycorp, Inc. (MCP) 1.20 to 38.93, SodaStream International Ltd. (SODA) 1.61 to 33.50, Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN) 3.51 to 215.62, and Youku.com Inc (YOKU) 1.19 to 20.76.

The Direxion Daily Small Cap Bull 3X Shares (TNA) was up 2.88 to 45.65, and the Direxion Daily Financial Bull 3X Shares (FAS) jumped 1.00 to 13.76.

On the downside, the ultra-shorts were hammered back again. VelocityShares Daily 2x VIX ST ETN (TVIX) was down 2.41 to 54.81, the Direxion Daily Small Cap Bear 3X Shares (TZA) down 2.29 to 31.30, and the Direxion Daily Financial Bear 3X Shares (FAZ) 3.59 to 41.41.

Other than the ultra-shorts very few stocks on our board were down more than fractionally, other than VirnetX Holding Corp (VHC), which dropped 1.35 to 21.47.

Stepping back and reviewing the hourly chart patterns, the indices were up early on a gap, pulled back to retest, went to session highs late in the morning, and pulled back steeply in the afternoon, but held yesterday’s late lows, and came on in a steady rally over the last couple hours to close with gains on a nice net day.

However, we’ll take note that the two-day pattern here represents what looks like bear flags on the hourly charts, and we’re quite concerned about the structure of the pattern with the S&P 500 having the look of a head-and-shoulder type pattern on the last week. That’s disconcerting to us.

Let’s see how tomorrow goes.

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