Volume today was 7.4 billion on the NYSE Composite, which is huge for a day before a holiday. 

Over the past two years, volume has averaged 3.58 billion on days before holidays, 4.06 billion excluding Christmas and New Years.  The next heaviest volume day prior to a holiday was before Good Friday last year, when 6.09 billion shares traded hands.  In 2007, volume the day before Good Friday was 2.29 billion.

Big gains on big volume is a sign that the market is bottoming.  The market has been rising on higher volume and falling on lighter volume, which is also a sign of the market bottoming.

We have more work ahead of us, and I imagine that we will have one more leg down, but the market is in the bottoming process, and the low of 666 on the S&P 500 on March 6 may have been the ultimate low of this bear market.