NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - A month after stocks dove to their lowest levels in over five years, investors are feeling a lot more chipper.

Worries that we were on the brink of a mass-exodus out of U.S. assets, and a looming credit crunch, have fallen by the wayside. Aug. 14, the deadline for many CEOs to certify financial results, passed without incidenct, raising the hope that the worst of the corporate swindles are behind us. Jitters remain over the economy and an unsettled international scene, but the market has been able to shrug them off.

From its closing lows of last month, the Dow Jones Industrial Average has risen more than 1,100 points.

"In July we had an emotional meltdown," said Jim Griffin, strategist at Aeltus Investment Management. "Now we've bounced back. I think we've hurt some bears."

The coming week could put stocks' bounce to the test, however. A slew of reports will help investors determine whether some recent signs of slowing in the economy were just an air pocket, or something worse. (Click here to jump straight to a lineup of key events.)

So far in August, weekly reports have shown a slowdown in non-auto retail sales, raising the worry that consumer spending could be stalling. In its last sounding, for the week ended Aug. 17, the Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi's retail chain store index (released every Tuesday) showed year-over-year growth in sales at its worst level since the beginning of the year.

Investors are hoping it was just the hot weather in many parts of the country that kept customers out of the stores. Since the heat broke this past week, the weekly sales reports from top retailers that come out Monday should show sales breaking higher.

"If we see another decline like we saw last week," said Salomon Smith Barney economist Chris Wiegand, "there's going to be a bit more of a reason to worry about the consumer pulling back."

Investors will also be looking toward the Tuesday release of the Conference Board's consumer confidence index for August and the University of Michigan's final read on consumer sentiment for August on Friday. Both measures have stumbled lately, but with the recent improvement in the market, economists suspect they've bottomed out.

On the business side of the economy, investors will be watching the July durable goods report on Tuesday and the Chicago Purchasing Managers' Index on Friday.

Orders for durable goods (long-lasting manufactured goods like cars, computers and washing machines) dropped sharply in June, spurring worries that businesses were pulling back sharply. Economists suspect orders hopped back higher in July, and some, like Wiegand, are looking for a big jump.

"The declines in Junes were just everywhere," he said. "They just don't seem like they're accurate." He thinks that those declines will be reversed in the July report, and also that a strong performance in the auto sector pushed orders higher. If he's right investors may, at least momentarily, start thinking the economic recovery is back on track.

The Chicago Purchasing Managers' Index will give investors their best read on manufacturing activity so far. It probably picked up from last month, but Lehman Brothers economist Joe Abate cautions that it may not accurately reflect what's happening nationwide because car production exerts such a heavy influence on Chicago-area manufacturers. Still, traders believe the Chicago Index is a good indicator of what the national Purchasing Managers' Index, due out the following Tuesday, will come in.

Aeltus' Griffin thinks we'll muddle through when it comes to the economy. Things aren't booming with the consumer, but the severe retrenchment isn't in the cards. As the year comes to a close, he suspects earnings will have picked up enough that companies will start spending more and the economy's recovery will start to look more lasting.

"We're just in a long-term bottoming process here, and we're just going to keep bouncing until we sort out what's going on with the economy and earnings," he said. "But I think we're going to close higher from here at the end of the year."

• Some people worry that housing activity could slow down, but don't look for any indications of that in the July home sales numbers, coming out Monday. Economists expect that sales of new homes slowed from June's blistering pace, but that existing home sales picked up the slack. Moreover, with record mortgage activity, sales should remain strong. Anecdotally, the traffic of people looking at homes has picked up this August.
• Investors will be listening keenly to weekly sales reports from the likes of Wal-Mart on Monday. So far in August, sales have been weak. If they don't pop back, investors are going to start to worry about the consumer.
• June's big decline in durable goods orders was one of the main things that got investors worrying that the economy had stalled. Economists expect the July report, due out Tuesday, will show a snapback.
• The Conference Board releases its Consumer Confidence Index Tuesday.
• The Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi's weekly retail chain store index gets released Tuesday.
• Toll Brothers (TOL: Research, Estimates) posts results Tuesday morning. The homebuilder has ridden the real-estate wave, but lately its stock has deteriorated. Investors worry that a) housing activity is overdone (shorts say its a bubble) and b) that housing won't be able to hold up if the economy goes into a fresh decline. Analysts polled by Multex expect Toll earned 65 cents a share in its last quarter, down from last year's earnings.
• Hewlett-Packard (HPQ: Research, Estimates) reports Tuesday after the close. As much as anything investors will want to know what, if anything, the company plans on doing about the market share Dell continues to snatch away from it. Analysts expect it earned 14 cents a share.
• Thursday's second take on second-quarter gross domestic product shouldn't carry any surprises. But the Commerce Department's accompanying report on corporate profits will draw interest -- with so much confusion over bookkeeping lately, some investors view the government's report the best way to get a handle on where earnings are really going.
• Krispy-Kreme (KKD: Research, Estimates), which reports second-quarter earnings before the bell on Thursday, hasn't been generating the sort of excitement that it did last year, when it made investors portfolios swell like some of its customers' midsections. After gaining 113 percent in 2001, it's dropped 15 percent since the beginning of the year. Even then, it has a price-to-earnings ratio of 60 based on this year's expected earnings. It will need to keep growing fast to convince investors its stock isn't just on a sugar high. Analysts estimate Krispy-Kreme earned 14 cents a share.
• The Chicago Purchasing Mangers' Index for August comes out on Friday. Economists surveyed by Briefing.com expect it to improve from last month.
• Friday the University of Michigan releases its final read on consumer sentiment for the month.
• Friday is the date Major League Baseball players set to go on strike if they can't come to terms with management. Economists say both sides should stop being babies and play ball.