Thursday’s session was a terrific follow-up to yesterday’s very strong session.  The indices opened strong, backed and filled and coiled for about half the session, and then got very quiet around lunch hour.  When they were unable to break intraday moving averages, trendlines or price support, the indices started to accelerate in the afternoon, particularly when well-known economist Nouriel Roubini, who’d been a bear, said he thinks we’ve seen an economic bottom and turned the corner.

That triggered buying.  The indices spiked up in late afternoon trading, getting up to nearly 1522 on the NDX and nearly 944 on the SPX.  In the last 10 minutes they pulled back sharply, but still ended up quite  positive on the day.

Net on the day the Dow was up 95.61 to 8711.82, the S&P 500 up 8.06 at 940.74 and the Nasdaq 100 up nearly 18 at 1518.87.

The technicals were positive by about 21 to 9 on advance-declines on New York and by about 3 to 2 on Nasdaq.   Up/down volume was 7 to 4 positive on New York on total volume of just under 1.2 billion.  Nasdaq traded over 2 billion and had a 3 to 1 positive volume ratio.

TheTechTrader.com board was active, with many point-plus gainers.  The ag/chem stocks led the way with the acquisition bid for Mosaic ( ).  That closed at 49.98, up 5.43, and Potash (POT) closed at 91.58, up 3.82.

Top 25 list member STEC Inc. ( ) was up 4.20 to 31.7, on nearly 7 million shares after announcing a $120 million contract.

Vanda Pharmaceuticals ( ) also jumped late in the session, closing up 1.10 to 12.80.

Junior solars were strong, with Yingli Green Energy ( ) up 1.09 at 12.17, and Canadian Solar ( ) up 80 cents to 13.42.

Financials were mixed, with Goldman Sachs ( ) up 1.58 to 156.84.