One thing a technician never argues with is volume. The purest element to technical analysis is the basic measure of supply and demand or volume of stock sold and volume of stock bought. Volume can be used to analyze a single stock or the entire market. Heavy volume or demand on the upside is considered bullish while heavy volume or supply on the downside is bearish. These high volume days more importantly coincided with strong market days.
Strong demand equals higher stock prices.
Not only was overall volume a record on Thursday, but most of it was upside volume. So along with the strong demand for stocks, there was little supply. This makes a lot of sense as most of the issues that trade on the NYSE have been beaten down so much, there was little left to sell or virtually no supply. Simple economics is at work here, its just not easy to interpret all the time. Business Week Online may receive a share of any fees you pay for services.