The markets had a solid up-day closing near the highs for the session and a decent follow-through to yesterday's strength.

However, the day started out with a gap-down, taking out minor support,but holding secondary support. Then they had a strong morning rally which took out Friday's highs before consolidating and moving higher into the lunch hour. For the rest of he session the market meandered back and forth in a slightly rising pattern.

At the end of the day, the S&P closed slightly above an important short-term level of resistance, and we'll see if there's any follow-through tomorrow.

Net on the day, the Dow was up 70 1/2, the S&P 500 up 11.41, the Nasdaq Composite 18, the 100 up 12.38, and the SOX up 3 1/4.

The technicals were pretty good, a little bit better than 2 to 1 on the New York Stock Exchange and a little better than 3 to 2 on Nasdaq. Up/down volume was solid, though. Total volume was a little less than 1.4 billion on New York, with 1 billion of it to the upside, better than 3 to 1 positive. Nasdaq was 2 to 1 to the upside, with a little less than 1 3/4 billion traded.

But it was a positive day for Wall Street, and after a three-day holiday, I'm sure traders were glad to see the market back in an upswing.

TheTechTrader.com board was mostly higher, with only a couple stocks up more than a point. Zoltek (ZOLT), one of our previous Charts of the Week, was up 2.57 to a new three-year high. One of our Charts of the Week finalists this week, Click Commerce (CKCM), was up 1.36 and broke out as well.

Other stocks of note, Energy Conversion (ENER) was up 73 cents, Biolase (BLTI) 50 cents, and Evergreen Solar (ESLR), one of this week's Charts of the Week, up 42 cents.

In the stem cell area, Geron(GERN) was up 62 cents and StemCells (STEM) up 75 cents on heavy volume of 23 million plus. Nitromed (NTMD) was up 65 cents and Nanogen (NGEN) 27 cents.

On the downside there were small losses in Parlux Fragrances (PARL), Mikron (MIKR), CryptoLogic (CRYP) and Harmonic Inc. (HLIT), along with Alvarion (ALVR), which was down 30 cents.

Stepping back reviewing the overall patterns, despite the fact that the S&P got up slightly above the rally high of January 10, the NDX has not confirmed that yet. We still have important overhead resistance to consider right in this zone on the S&P and only a few points above here at around the 1578-80 area on the NDX.

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.