The stock market indices had a bang-bang close today on options expiration day with a strong afternoon snapback rally.
The day started out with a gap to the upside and a strong run up to test resistance. They reached 2350 on the Nasdaq 100 and 1239 S&P 500 before rolling over pretty hard midday, nearly filling the gap on the NDX all the way back to 2315, a 35-point pullback. The S&P 500 dropped from 1239 down to 1226, but both key levels held, and then a snapback and spike up in the last 15 minutes, in particular, closed the indices near the highs on the S&P 500 and on the Dow.
Net on the day, the Dow was up 267.01 at 11,808.79, the S&P 500 up 22.86 at 1238.25, and the Nasdaq 100 up 29.64 at 2335.93. That was 14 points off the high, so the NDX didn't fare as well as the others.
Advance-declines were 26 to 4 positive on the New York Stock Exchange, and 4 to 1 positive on Nasdaq. Up/down volume was 7 to 1 positive on New York, with total volume of 1.75 billion shares traded today. Nasdaq traded just under 2 billion shares and had a nearly 4 to 1 positive volume ratio.
It was a very strong day technically on the indices for sure.
TheTechTrader.com board was mostly higher. Leading the way, Netflix, Inc. (NFLX) was up 5.56 to 117.04, which helped the NDX today. International Business Machines Corp. (IBM) was up 4.38 to 181.63.
Other gainers of note included Seagate Technology PLC (STX), up 3.36 to 15.42, or 28%, and low-priced Clean Diesel Technologies Inc. (CDTI), up 69 cents to 3.50, or 25%.
Also, Novatel Wireless Inc. (NVTL) was up 55 cents to 3.86, or 17%, Premiere Global Services, Inc. (PGI) up 1.05 to 8.77, or 14%; Charming Shoppes Inc. (CHRS) 40 cents to 3.54, or 13%; Altera Corp. (ALTR) 4.02 to 37.05, or 12%; Central European Media Enterprises Ltd. (CETV) 1.14 to 11.07, or 11 1/2%; Select Comfort Corporation (SCSS) 2.15 to 21.57, or 11%; SanDisk Corp.