The Fed spoke today, and the market liked it. We had a monstrous rally in the afternoon, and the indices closed going away at the highs for the day on a big thrust on big volume and strong technicals.

The day started out with a gap up, and then they moved higher in the morning before pulling back and retesting mid-session. They firmed up before the Fed announced, and when the Fed announced their quarter-point rate hike the follow-on comments were considered bullish by most Wall Street analysts and traders. The market exploded. We had just one 10-minute pullback, and then they took off and closed as indicated, VERY strongly on the session, with the Dow up 217, the S&P 500 up nearly 27, and the Nasdaq 100 up over 47. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index (SOXX) was up 17, or more than 4% today. That certainly helped Nasdaq.

Technicals were solid by nearly 28 to 5 on advance/declines in New York and 24 to 6 on Nasdaq. Up/down volume was a whopping 12 to 1 positive on New York on total volume of about 1.85 billion. Nasdaq traded 2.2 billion, with 2 billion of it to the upside, of more than a 10 to 1 ratio.

TheTechTrader.com board was extremely strong across the board, with many point-plus gainers, led by Baidu.com (BIDU) up $3.52, Apple (AAPL) up $2.95, Dynamic Materials (BOOM ) up $2.31, and Travelzoo (TZOO ) up $2.17. The GLD gold tracking stock was up $1.91.

Other point-plus gainers included DXP Enterprises (DXPE) up $1.42, Energy Conversion Devices (ENER) up $1.13, and Broadcom (BRCM) $1.19. The Qs (QQQQ) gained $1.15, PW Eagle (PWEI) $1.13, and Qualcomm (QCOM) $1.07. Merix (MERX) also popped $1.12 this morning on good news.

On the downside, there were just a couple stocks to note. Mikron Infrared (MIKR) was down $0.80 and IMCO $0.40. Those were the only two stocks on my board down today.

Stepping back and reviewing the overall chart patterns, the key to today's strong rally which thrust on heavy volume and strong technicals was that it took out declining tops lines going back seven weeks on the S&P and then later in the afternoon took out key lateral price resistance at the 1260-62 zone, in closing at the highs, going away.

It was a very good thrust, a very strong start to what may have been the end of the seven-week intermediate decline. The market needs a follow-up over the next few days to confirm that. TheTechTrader.com will be off tomorrow, on vacation, and we'll see you next Wednesday.

Harry Boxer is a technical consultant to many Wall Street hedge funds and large institutional traders, and author of TheTechTrader.com, a real-time diary of his day, swing and intermediate-term trades. For more of Harry Boxer, sign up for a free 15-day trial to his Real-Time Technical Trading Diary, or sign up for a free 30-day trial to his Top Charts of the Week service.