The stock market indices had a wild and woolly day today as they were all over the place with huge gaps up. At the close on strong futures, they pulled back sharply, moreso on the Nasdaq 100. When the S&P 500 did not follow suit, they rallied very sharply, getting all the way up to 2343 NDX and nearly 1257 S&P 500. They consolidated and rolled over hard and sharp to form bear flags, failed at resistance, and rolled over again in a 3-wave decline. The last 15-20 minutes the indices came back sharply, and recovered about 40% of the losses to end solidly in the plus column on the day.

Net on the day, the Dow was up 78.41 at 12,097.83, the S&P 500 up 12.80 to 1257.08, and the Nasdaq 100 up 24.91 at 2326.95.

Advance-declines were better than 3 to 1 positive with 2358 up and 680 down on the New York Stock Exchange, and 2 1/2 to 1 positive on Nasdaq. Up/down volume was 6 to 1 positive with 760 million up and 127 million down on New York, with total volume of 880 million shares traded today. Nasdaq traded 1.6 billion shares and had a 3 to 1 positive volume ratio.

It was a solid technical day, and most of the stocks we follow had a very good day today.

TheTechTrader.com board, as a result, had a very good day. Leading the way were some of the large-cap stocks. Apple Inc. (AAPL) was up 3.31 to 393.01, Goldman Sachs (GS) up 2.57 to 99.82, International Business Machines Corp. (IBM) 1.18 to 190.84, Netflix, Inc. (NFLX) 3.75 to 70.12, Universal Display Corp. (PANL) 1.55 to 42.44, and SodaStream International Ltd. (SODA) 2.72 to 33.13.

In addition, Taleo Corp. (TLEO) was the big winner today, up 6.54 to 39.50.

Other gainers of note included Kenexa Corp. (KNXA) up 4.12 to 29.44, Aruba Networks, Inc. (ARUN) up 1.06 to 22.41, IMAX Corporation (IMAX) 2.16 to 21.43, NetSuite Inc. (N) 4.20 to 47.30, Mercadolibre, Inc. (MELI) 5.70 to 91.04, and Ultimate Software Group, Inc. (ULTI) 4.04 to 68.69.

In the low-priced sector, First Security Group, Inc. (FSGI) was up 1.51 to 3.66, or 70%; Athersys, Inc. (ATHX) up 51 cents to 2.17, or 32%; Sino Clean Energy Inc (SCEI) 30 cents to 1.40, or 27%; ZOOM Technologies, Inc. (ZOOM) 30 cents to 1.53, or 24%; Affymax, Inc. (AFFY) 1.01 to 6.26, or 19%; and Frontline Ltd. (FRO) 50 cents to 3.54, or 16%.

Bon-Ton Stores Inc. (BONT) gained 48 cents to 3.54, or 16%, and Cornerstone OnDemand, Inc. (CSOD) 1.96 to 18.20, or 12%.

On the downside, the only stock that was down more than just a small fraction was Inhibitex Inc. (INHX), which gave back a small fraction, 97 cents to 14.54.

Ultra-short Direxion Daily Financial Bear 3X Shares (FAZ) was down 2.04 to 38.58, and the Direxion Daily Small Cap Bear 3X Shares (TZA) 1.46 to 26.98, but the VelocityShares Daily 2x VIX ST ETN (TVIX) was down only 34 cents to 43.07.

Stepping back and reviewing the hourly chart patterns, the indices were up sharply earlier, consolidated for the rest of the morning, rolled over hard in the afternoon, and snapped back in the last 15 - 20 minutes to end with solid gains on the day. There were good technicals as well.

We'll have to see how the rest of this week goes.

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