NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - Wall Street's enthusiasm that war with Iraq would last little more than a week may have been dashed, but the market still seems to think that everything will be mopped up in fairly short order.

"Overall it still seems like the market has an optimistic view of the war," said Rosenblatt Securities head trader David Gang. "That at some point in the next couple of months, it will be over."

Even a couple of months would be a stretch in many Wall Streeters' minds. In their modeling, most economists seem to have reckoned on conflict lasting just a month.

The Saddam futures contracts administered by the Dublin-based firm Tradesports, which allow participants -- mostly professional traders active in the New York and London markets -- to bet on how long Saddam Hussein will hang on, are showing a 62 percent chance the Iraqi leader will be gone by the end of April.

With the exception of Israel's six-day war in 1968, even short wars have tended to take some time. The 1991 Gulf War went 74 days from the allies' first strike to the ceasefire. Britain's war with Argentina over the Falklands took 37 days (the British armada had to get there first). In 1999, Serb forces agreed to withdraw from Kosovo 79 days after NATO started bombing.

The key to market action in the week ahead, then, will be to what degree the actual war meets Wall Street's expectations. Anyone trying to figure this out so far (which is to say everyone), has found themselves deep in the rabbit hole among press reports that Iraqi resistance has proved steeper than what the Bush administration expected. Perhaps there will be more clarity come next Friday. (Click here for a line up of events in the coming week.)

One thing that everyone has a little more clarity on is the current state of the economy -- lousy. Worries over war and higher energy prices have weighed on businesses and consumers alike, leading to a steady erosion in business activity in February and March.

Two key economic reports for March in the coming week, the Purchasing Managers' Index on Tuesday and the monthly jobs report on Friday, will give some inkling of how bad things really are. Economists expect the Purchasing Managers' Index to drop below 50 for the first time since October, signaling contraction in the manufacturing economy. They think the economy lost jobs again in March, and that the unemployment rate rose to 5.9 percent.

How the reports actually come in will be important for two reasons. First, they will give a firmer sense of how uncertainty in the run up to the war and in the war's opening moments affected business attitudes. Even more crucially, they will indicate what kind of footing the U.S. economy is on as the country goes about the war. If they come in poorly, the odds that a longer-than-expected war could send the country into recession will go up.

"If we're talking about a two-month war instead of a one-month war, you're going to see this economic weakness persist through April and into May," said Lehman Brothers economist Joe Abate. "The weakness is going to last as long as the war does."

Still, the economy may have one saving grace even if the war isn't over by the time Wall Street starts wearing its seersucker suit and panama, points out Salomon Smith Barney economist Mitchell Held. The Federal Reserve, which has held pat on rates as it waits to see if the geopolitical uncertainties plaguing the economy might lift, will finally get off its keister.

"You're either going to get consumer sentiment improving or you're going to get the Fed cutting rates," said Held.

A lower fed funds rate, along with the environment that would bring that about, would send bond yields lower, and with them mortgage rates. That would allow households, yet again, to refinance mortgages, helping keep consumers spending, and the economy limping along until the last shot is fired.

• Monday, the March Chicago-area purchasing management index gets released. Closely followed because it often indicates how the following day's national index will come in, the Chicago PMI is expected to slip to 51 from the previous month's 54.9, according to the consensus of economists surveyed by Briefing.com.
• Economists expect bad news from the Institute for Supply Management's March national Purchasing Managers' Index, due out Tuesday. Due to weakness in several regional manufacturing surveys, the PMI is forecast to drop to 48.9 from 50.5 in February. Any number below 50 signals contraction in the manufacturing economy.
• February construction spending, due out Tuesday, is expected to drop by 0.4 percent compared with a 1.7 percent gain in January.
• Automakers will report March sales throughout the day Tuesday, with economists expecting the big three to report an annualized 12 million cars and trucks leaving the lot, down from 12.1 million in February. Rising inventory levels at among the car companies is another cause for concern.
• February factory orders, due out Wednesday, are expected to drop by 1 percent compared with a 1.5 percent gain in January.
• The Institute for Supply Management's services index, due out Thursday, is expected to drop to 53 for March from 53.9 in February. The index seeks to measure business activity in the service sector, with any number under 50 signaling contraction.
• Friday brings the key economic report of the week, the March employment report. Economists expect the unemployment rate crept up to 5.9 percent from February's 5.8 percent and that the economy lost another 50 thousand jobs on top of February's whopping 308,000 job loss.