EXCELLENT FOLLOW-THROUGH SESSION
By Harry Boxer, The Technical Trader (www.thetechtrader.com)

We had an excellent follow-through day to the rally on Friday. The indices gapped up at the opening, did have a quick pullback but held, and then came on very strongly. By late morning we had a pretty sharp pullback for about 20 minutes, but they held intraday moving averages, bounced and then made successively higher lows and higher high all afternoon until they finally spiked up with about 15 minutes to go at the session highs. At that point the Dow was up nearly 550 points, but they pulled back sharply over a 10- minute period, and with about 5 minutes to go, jumped back again.

So they closed firmly, with the Dow up 397, the S&P 500 a little less than 52, and the Nasdaq 100 nearly 69. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index (SOXX) was up nearly 11, a 5 1/2 percent gain.

The technicals were very strong. Advance-declines were positive by 2834 up and 368 down on New York, or about 8 to 1, and by 2204 up and 718 down, or about 3 to 1, on Nasdaq. Up/down volume was 1.9 billion to the upside and only 137 million to the downside, or 14 to 1 positive, on New York. Nasdaq had 2 1/2 billion shares trading up and only 144 million down, or a 17 to 1 positive ratio.

Total volume was also strong, with more than 2 billion traded on New York and 2.6 billion on Nasdaq.

TheTechTrader.com board was also outstanding, with big gainers across the board. Leading the way was Apple (AAPL), up 10.37 to 92.95. The BGU, our Chart of the Week, was up 4.50 to 31.17. DIG at 29.46 was up 3.16, EWZ at 31.68 gained 2.32, and ERX, the triple energy long ETF, at 42.29 was up 6.06. The USO jumped 3.13 on the rise in crude oil, and the QLD was up 2.65.

Energy Conversion Devices (ENER) jumped 3.70, Portfolio position Emergent BioSolutions (EBS) at 19.80 was up 2.42, Morgan Stanley (MS) in a strong financial sector was up 3.33 to 13.38, Citigroup (C) was up 2.18 to 5.95 on positive financing news, and portfolio position Bank of America (BAC) jumped 3.12 to 14.59 today on 198 million shares.

Other stocks of note, Sequenom (SQNM) at 14.89 was up 1.64, Chart of the Week Geo Group (GEO) at 18.33 was up 1.15. Airlines were strong, with Continental (CAL) up 1.96 to 13.26, and United (UAUA) up 1.18 to 8.85.

In addition, DryShips (DRYS) had a big percentage gain of nearly 28%, up 96 cents to 4.50, but reached as high as 5.21 early in the day over nearly 17 million shares.

Ag stocks were mixed, with Mosaic (MOS) up 2.22 and Agrium (AGU) 1.23, but CF Holdings (CF) was down 48 cents, and Potash (POT) off 78 cents.

Stepping back and reviewing the hourly chart patterns, the indices had a strong session, and moved steadily higher with a mid-day pullback and a late-day surge. Only a last 10-15 minute pullback brought them off the highs, but still a very strong follow-up session with excellent technicals and solid volume.

Good trading!

Harry

Harry Boxer is an award-winning, widely syndicated technical analyst and author of The Technical Trader (www.thetechtrader.com), which features a real-time diary of Harry's minute-by-minute trades and market insights, plus annotated technical charts & stock picks, based on Harry's 30 years experience as a Wall Street technical analyst.

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