The indices had a strong rally late in the session that brought the indices up near the morning highs on the NDX , took out the morning highs on the Dow and S&P and ended not far from the highs for the day.  A last 15-minute pullback brought them off the highs.

The day started out with a strong surge that went to new rally highs on the S&P 500 but failed to take out last weekââ,¬â"¢s highs on the NDX.  They then sold off very sharply, tested secondary support, bounced in the morning, retested them again, tried a mid-day rally that also failed, and they sold off in mid-afternoon to retest the morning lows.  When that was successful, particularly on the Nasdaq 100  (the S&P made a higher low), that triggered the late rally which saw the indices push strongly into positive territory.

Net on the day, the Dow had a good session, up more than 52 Ã,½, the S&P 500 up around 8, and the Nasdaq 100 up around 7.  The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index (SOXX) was up about 4 Ã,¼.

The techninals were positive by 11 to 5 on advance-declines on New York and about 3 to 2 on Nasdaq.  Up/down volume was positive by 3 to 1 on New York and 2 to 1 on Nasdaq.  Total volume on the NYSE was more than 1.7 billion, with Nasdaq just under 1.9 billion.

TheTechTrader.com board had some outstanding issues today.  Long-time favorite DXP Enterprises (DXPE) announced great earnings last night.  The stock gapped up and then ran hard all day, closing up by more than $7 today on 1 Ã,¼ million shares.

Momenta Pharmaceuticals (MNTA),announced a very positive agreement with another major drug firm.  The stock advanced nearly 5 points today on more than 6 1/3 million shares.

The other star of the day was SanDisk (SNDK) which closed up 5.91 on more than 24 1/3 million shares.

Other stocks of note, Energy Conversion Devices (ENER) was up 1.18, Hansen Natural Corp. (HANS) up 1.55, and Smith Micro (SMSI) advanced 1.02, a strong gain there.

On the downside, point-plus losers were MED, down 1.28, but more than a point off the low, coming back late in the day, and Qualcomm (QCOM), which lost 1.10.  JetBlue (JBLU) lost 78 cents.  Other than that there were just fractional losses.

Stepping back and reviewing the hourly chart patterns, the patterns appear constructive as the Nasdaq 100 last week failed to make lower lows and the S&P 500 made higher lows. Since then weââ,¬â"¢ve been rallying, although todayââ,¬â"¢s sharp pullback in the morning was a strong test and the afternoon retest was successful.   That led to the late rally.  The Nasdaq 100, however, has not taken out the 1494-5 zone, which is current short-term resistance.  Above that we have the 1499-1500 area.  Thatââ,¬â"¢s what weââ,¬â"¢ll be watching tomorrow.

On the S&P weââ,¬â"¢ll be looking to see if the 1280 rally high of late last month can be taken out, so the next test there is 1278-80.

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.