The stock market indices had a very, very strong session today. It was a little volatile in the morning when they gapped up sharply, and then pulled back just as sharply to fill those gaps. They held at the intraday moving averages on the 5-minute chart, and then stormed ahead. A quick 5-wave advance got them to the new high for the day. They pulled back and forth, and flagged just before lunch hour, and then in the afternoon they took off again, once again consolidating mid-afternoon, and then ran into the close reaching near 2370 Nasdaq 100 from a low of 2311, and 1263 on the S&P 500 from 1235. They backed off just a tad in the last five minutes on profit taking, but still closed up positive on the day.

Net on the day, the Dow was up 208.43 at 12,044.47, the S&P 500 up 23.25 at 1261.15, and the Nasdaq 100 up 49.30 at 2367.71. Both the S&P 500 and NDX were just 2 points off their high.

Advance-declines were a little less than 4 to 1 positive on the New York Stock Exchange, and 3 to 1 positive on Nasdaq. Up/down volume was 6 to 1 positive on New York, with total volume of just over 1.5 billion shares traded today. Nasdaq traded 2.6 billion shares and had a 4 to 1 positive ratio advancing volume over declining volume.

It was a big day on Wall Street.

TheTechTrader.com board was mostly positive. Leading the way, Netflix, Inc. (NFLX) was up 8.90 to 92.29, Apple Inc. (AAPL) up 5.66 to 403.07, and International Business Machines Corp. (IBM) 3.38 to 187.30.

Medivation, Inc. (MDVN) was the biggest percentage gainer of the day on extremely positive cancer drug news. It had closed up 16 and change yesterday, and gapped this morning to about the 3 -39 zone, pulled back to 34, and then rocketed to 40, closing up 23.22 to 39.75, or 140%, on 14 million shares.

Other gainers of note included low-priced Dex One Corporation (DEXO), a junior biotech, up 66 cents to 1.30, or 101 1/2%, on 6 million shares. Orbitz Worldwide, Inc. (OWW) up rose 85 cents to 2.75, or 44 3/4%, on 1.5 million shares, and SonoSite Inc. (SONO) 9.17 to 39.95, or 30%, on 1.7 million shares. Low-priced GreenHunter Energy, Inc. (GRH) jumped 23 cents to 1.07, or 27.5%, and Anika Theraputics (ANIK), another junior biotech, was up 1.34 to 7.38, or 22%.

Alpha Natural Resources, Inc. (ANR), a swing trade, advanced 3.18 to 27.11. Valeant Pharmaceuticals International, Inc. (VRX) gained 5.10 to 43.60, and Tesla Motors, Inc. (TSLA) exploded late in the day, closing up 3.75 to 32.46. That was a clean breakout.

In addition, Fusion-io Inc. (FIO) was up 3.29 to 35.29, Twin Disc Inc. (TWIN) up 3.59 to 42.07, Fortinet Inc. (FTNT) 2.05 to 25.00 even, Polypore International Inc. (PPO) 4.38 to 56.91, and QUALCOMM Incorporated (QCOM) 3.93 to 56.11 on good earnings.

The Direxion Daily Small Cap Bull 3X Shares (TNA) was up 3.35 to 48.94.

On the downside, the ultra-shorts got hammered. VelocityShares Daily 2x VIX ST ETN (TVIX) was down 5.14 to 49.67, Direxion Daily Small Cap Bear 3X Shares (TZA) down 2.39 to 28.91, Direxion Daily Financial Bear 3X Shares (FAZ) 2.34 to 39.07, and Direxion Daily Large Cap Bear 3X Shares (BGZ) 1.85 to 31.23.

Stepping back and reviewing the hourly chart patterns, other than a gap up and a sharp pullback early, the indices rallied the rest of the day in a 5-wave advance, which closed them sharply higher for the day, and back up to key overhead resistance.

Let’s see if there‘s any follow-through tomorrow.

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