The stock market had a very powerful advance today, particularly on Nasdaq, which played catch-up today.

The day started out with strong pre market futures. They gapped up and consolidated for a while. When Bernanke spoke, the market liked what he had to say, and the indices exploded. The NDX, in particular, flagged after initially surging, made higher highs, flagged again, and made a third level of highs by mid-afternoon. However, a final rally try with just about an hour and a half to go, failed to get that confirmation from the NDX, , despite making new highs on the blue chips, and then they sold off into the close before a late bounce brought them back up a bit.

Net on the day, though, it was a solid session, with new all-time highs on the Dow, up 86.77. The S&P 500 went to new six-year highs, up more than 11 points. The Nasdaq 100 recouped 31 plus points today, but failed to even take out last week’s highs, which to me is a significant occurrence. But the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index (SOXX) was the story today, up nearly 10 points, helping drive the NDX higher.

The technicals were positive by 2 to 1 on advance-declines on New York, and by 3 to 2 on Nasdaq. Up/down volume was the story today, with about a 3 to 1 positive ratio on New York and a more than 5 to 1 positive ratio on Nasdaq. Nasdaq traded just over 2 billion shares, and New York traded about 1 Ã,½ billion.

TheTechTrader.com board was mostly higher, except for two outstanding losers today. On the plus side, however, the star by far today was First Solar (FSLR) on an excellent earnings report and various upgrades. It gapped up strongly, pulled back, and then ran the rest of the session, closing up 9.44 or 27% on 5.8 million.

Other point-plus gainers included Home Inns & Hotels (HMIN), the Chinese hotelier, snapping back 1.69, closing at 45. And Energy Conversion Devices (ENER) snapped back from recent losses, up 1.90 on 2 Ã,¾ million. Gmarket (GMKT), which got smacked earlier in the week, snapped back 1.36 today.

Other stocks of note, Qiao Xing Universal Telephone (XING) advanced 67 cents. Amex listed Halozyme(HTI), a recent Chart of the Week, was up 91 cents to a new all time high. Fuel Tech (FTEK) snapped back 59 cents. Cleveland BioLabs (CBLI) gained 57 cents, Chindex (CHDX) 63 cents, and portfolio position Aluminum Corp. of China (ACH) was up 71 cents, hitting a new nine-month high today.

The Qs(QQQQ) advanced 74 cents and the SMH 68 cents, in what was generally a very positive day on the Street.

Stepping back and reviewing the hourly chart patterns, as indicated earlier, the S&P 500 and Dow made new highs, all-time on the Dow and new six-year highs on the S&P, but the NDX failed to even take out last week’s high and still trails. However, today’s session was a very strong one, with the NDX up 1.8 percent.

We’ll see if we can get a follow-through and get the NDX to break out and do some confirming. But even if it takes out last week’s highs, the NDX is a good 25 points from its January high and has a ways to go.

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.