After the market gapped down at the opening, the indices rallied strongly in the first 90 minutes, pulled back into the lunch hour, and then rallied to session highs on the Nasdaq 100. A late surge took the S&P 500 and Dow to nominal new highs before a last-five-minute pullback took off the highs for the day.

Net on the day the Dow was up 68 and change, the S&P was up 10 1/2, the Nasdaq 100 was up just under 16, and the SOX Semiconductor Index was up about 6 1/2 points or about 1.5 percent today.

Technicals were solid by 21 to 11 advance-declines on New York and by 20 to 10 on Nasdaq. Up/down volume was also strong, with nearly 2 1/2 to 1 on New York and a little more than 2 1/2 to 1 on Nasdaq. Total volume a little on the light side, but not too bad, with about 1.3 billion on New York and a little less than 1.4 billion on Nasdaq.

TheTechTrader.com board was very active with some outstanding gainers. One bad loser was Alvarion (ALVR), on an earning's guidance downward, hammered for $2.58.

Stocks of note on the plus side: Catuity (CTTY), one of last week's big gainers, snapped back by $2.18. Forward Industries (FORD), following up on Friday's gain, was up another $2.16 to close over $20.  Able Energy (ABLE) was up $1.45 and Georesources (GEOI) up $1.38.  Those were our Charts of the Week this week.  Also in the junior energy sector, Toreador Resources (TRGL) was up $1.95.

Other stocks of note: Parlux Fragrance (PARL) was up $1.94, and in the alternative energy sector, Energy Conversion Devices (ENER), was up 69 cents and Daystar Technologies (DSTI) up $1.18. Other than that, most stocks were just fractionally changed.

Reviewing the overall patterns on the hourly charts, the indices came up against key overhead resistance from last week's highs and backed off, consolidating on the Nasdaq.

But the S&P 500 took those highs out. The afternoon pullbacks held at those levels, so support did hold. The indices closed rather strongly.

It will be interesting to see if we can follow up the session tomorrow and take out key resistance at around 1512-1513 on the NDX, and surge higher on the S&P and test the 1210-1212 zone, the next resistance zone there.

Good trading!

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.