The stock market indices had a spectacular session as positive economic and financial news, both domestically and internationally, helped boost world markets, and the US markets were no different.

The day started out with big gaps up on strong futures before the market opened, which spurred gap openings on both the Nasdaq 100 and S&P 500. After the opening, the NDX and SPX exploded and ran hard. The NDX opened at 2265 and ran up to 2290, and the S&P 500 ran from 1200 to 1240. At that point they backed off over the next several hours to retest, but in a constructive manner, and then came on in the last hour, and exploded into the close.

Net on the day, the Dow was up 490.95 at 12,045.68, or 4.25%; the S&P 500 up 51.75 to 1246.94, or 4.33%; and the Nasdaq 100 up 83.81 at 2295.20, or 4%.

It was a fabulous day on Wall Street. That’s the first time the Dow has been over 12,000 in quite a while.

Advance-declines were 27 to 4 positive on the New York Stock Exchange, and on Nasdaq they were 2140 to 457. Up/down volume was 1.6 up and only 65 million down on New York, and on Nasdaq it was 2.25 billion up and 215 million down, and a 10-11 to 1 positive volume ratio.

It was a spectacular day, indeed.

TheTechTrader.com was mostly up today. Leading the way were large-cap stocks. Apple Inc. (AAPL) was up 9.00 to 382.20, First Solar, Inc. (FSLR) up 4.05 to 47.86, Goldman Sachs (GS) 7.05 to 95.86, International Business Machines Corp. (IBM) 7.06 to 188.00 even, Molycorp, Inc. (MCP) 3.02 to 33.85, and Questcor Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (QCOR) 2.11 to 44.95.

Other gainers of note included Sotheby’s (BID) 4.59 to 31.41, Aruba Networks, Inc. (ARUN) up 1.44 to 21.10, InterDigital, Inc. (IDCC) 1.79 to 43.96, VirnetX Holding Corp (VHC) 1.20 to 19.84, Youku.com Inc (YOKU) 1.97 to 19.53, Golar LNG Ltd. (GLNG) 2.07 to 43.60, Inhibitex Inc. (INHX) 90 cents to 14.60, United States Steel Corp. (X) 3.63 to 27.30, Arcelor Mittal (MT) 2.31 to 18.89, Green Mountain Coffee Roasters Inc. (GMCR) 3.51 to 52.42, and Breitburn Energy Partners L.P. (BBEP) 1.25 to 18.50.

Zoltek Companies Inc. (ZOLT) jumped 2.48 to 8.21, or 43%. Mitek Systems Inc. (MITK) snapped back 73 cents to 7.33, or 11%, on 1.3 million shares. MBIA Inc. (MBI) rose 1.53 to 9.70, or 18.7%, along with Leap Wireless International Inc. (LEAP) 1.26 to 9.07, or 16%, and Melco Crown Entertainment Ltd. (MPEL) 1.17 to 9.92, or 13%. Patriot Coal Corporation (PCX) added 1.73 to 10.41, or 20%, and GLG Life Tech Corporation (GLGL) 37 cents to 1.14, or 48%. .

Avalon Rare Metals Inc. (AVL) was up 63 cents to 3.34, or 23 1/4%, in a strong rare-earth sector.

Coal producers had a good day as well as Patriot Coal Corporation (PCX) was up 1.73 to 10.41, or 20%.

The Direxion Daily Financial Bull 3X Shares (FAS) was up 9.32 to 62.04, and the Direxion Daily Small Cap Bull 3X Shares (TNA) jumped 6.72 to 44.84.

On the downside, Netflix, Inc. (NFLX) dropped 3.04 as shares of the online digital media company saw its stock slump 4.5% to close at 64.53 today.

The ultra-shorts really got hammered today. The VelocityShares Daily 2x VIX ST ETN (TVIX) was down 9.74 to 45.53, the Direxion Daily Financial Bear 3X Shares (FAZ) down 8.87 to 41.33, the Direxion Daily Small Cap Bear 3X Shares (TZA) 6.09 to 28.20, Direxion Daily Emrg Mkts Bear 3X Shares (EDZ) 4.18 to 18.12, the Direxion Daily Large Cap Bear 3X Shares (BGZ) 4.40 to 31.05, and the iPath S&P 500 VIX Short-Term Futures ETN (VXX) 4.07 to 41.81.

Stepping back and reviewing the hourly chart patterns, the indices gapped up, ran hard, and then they pulled back, but held support in the last couple hours, and snapped back, and in a late short-covering frenzy they closed up with spectacular gains at the highs for the day going away.

We’ll see if we get additional upside tomorrow.

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