The indices had another positive session and extended the rally. The strongest part of the day was early on when the indices opened strong and reached their peak after about an hour and a half. They then came down rather sharply, held the intraday moving averages and bounced, but then consolidated for a couple hours and got real quiet. In the afternoon they tried to rally and take out the highs, but failed, backed and filled, but when they were unable to break out they rolled back in the last 15 minutes or so, taking the indices off their best levels of the day.

Still, the Dow closed up 71 and change, the S&P 500 more than 7 Ã,¼, and the NDX more than 10 Ã,½, with the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index (SOXX) up more than 5 Ã,¼.

The technicals were positive by 2 to 1 on advance-declines on New York and 3 to 2 on Nasdaq. Up/down volume was 2 Ã,½ to 1 positive on New York and nearly 3 to 1 positive on Nasdaq.

Total volume was less than 1.5 billion on New York and just about at 2 billion on Nasdaq.

TheTechTrader.com board was mostly higher, across the board, led by portfolio position, Color Kinetics (CLRK), which had a stellar day today. It broke out to new all-time, closing up 2.63 on nearly a million shares today. That was our Chart of the Day.

Low-priced solar energy play HOKU announced a major contract, gapped up sharply and ran hard, but gave back a chunk of it, still closing up 2.15 on the day on more than 15 million shares.

Other stocks of note on the plus side, old favorite Chindex (CHDX) was up 80 cents, Chart of the Week Acadia Pharmaceuticals (ACAD) up 45 cents, and recent Chart of the Week Ceragon Networks (CRNT) up 56 cents.

Cree Inc. (CREE) was up 54 cents, portfolio position DG FastChannel (DGIT) up 70 cents, recent Chart of the Day MEDTOX Scientific (MTOX) up 87 cents, and Chart of the Week PTT up 36 cents, along with portfolio position Taser (TASR) up 42 cents.

Our model portfolio had a good day today and so did the market, but the S&P 500 is still far away from taking out the highs for the year, although pretty close to it on the NDX.

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.