NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - Any moment now, the stock market is supposed to start falling apart.

How could it not? Just consider how far stocks have traveled since March and how heady valuations have got as a result. Sure, the economy is queued up for some sort of improvement, but it's going to struggle to meet the optimistic expectations that seem priced into the market. Even vociferous bulls have begun arguing that it's time for the market to catch its breath.

History, too, argues for a pullback. The third quarter tends to be less than kind to stocks -- over the past 50 years the Dow has tended to lose ground in the July-to-September period, while it's tended to gain during the other quarters. This seasonal effect, whatever its roots may be, has tended to be self-fulfilling -- with many investors tending to trim positions in the summer months.

But let's say, just for fun's sake, that the market doesn't go into its usual summer slowdown. That'd be big, thinks Bollinger Capital Management head John Bollinger. It'd be like seeing an unlikely baseball player, say Derek Jeter, rip the ball out of the park in eight successive games. You'd start thinking that something's changed.

In the current setup, said Bollinger, it would be a signal that the rally in stocks is more than just a rally, but the beginning of a brand new bull market. He doubts very much that this is the case -- he thinks that the rally will probably leg a bit higher, and then stall out -- but he's also put himself in a position where if this is a brand new bull, he's going to benefit.

"I'm pretty long right now," he said. "I'm going to stay in the market to see what happens."

At least for the week ahead, stocks may find plenty of fodder for a move higher. (Click here for a lineup of key events.)

To begin with, second-quarter earnings season has kicked off, and it looks as though it will be good. Company results look like they could beat analysts' current estimates by a good margin -- the warnings for the second quarter were on the light side and analysts' estimates have gone through a lot less trimming than they usually do. (For a look at the week's key earnings reports, click here.)

And then there is Alan Greenspan, who is due to give his semi-annual speech on monetary policy to the House Financial Services Committee and Senate Banking Committee Tuesday and Wednesday. The Fed chairman will try to make it as uplifting an experience as possible.

"He's going to try to give two messages," said Goldman Sachs director of U.S. economic research Bill Dudley. "First, he's going to be relatively optimistic on the prospect for recovery. Second, he's going to try to intimate that inflation is low and likely to stay low, and so Fed tightening is very far off in time."

The first part of Greenspan's task is relatively straightforward -- say things are looking up, offer a few caveats (prefaced by the inevitable "to be sure") and you're done. The second is more nuanced. He doesn't want the market to get all freaked out about the possibility of deflation, but he wants to drive home the notion that the fed funds rate is going to be low for a good long while, and thus prevent interest rates from backing up any further.

If he can do that, it will ensure that mortgage rates stabilize and refinancing activity remains relatively strong. It will also keep companies' cost of capital in the debt markets low. Both of these things would help push the recovery forward.

• It's earnings earnings earnings all week. Click here to see the ones that matter.
• Economists surveyed by Briefing.com expect June retail sales, due out Tuesday, to show a pickup of 0.4 percent, compared with May's gain of 0.1 percent.
• Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan gives his semi-annual testimony before the House Financial Services Committee on Tuesday. He'll give it again to the Senate Banking Committee on Wednesday.
• Wednesday the key read on inflation at the consumer level, the Consumer Price Index, is due out. Economists expect it picked up by 0.2 percent in June after being unchanged in May.
• Housing starts, due out Thursday, are expected to come in at an annualized 1.75 million for June, up from May's 1.73 million. Building permits are expected to show a decline to 1.79 million from May's 1.8 million.
• Thursday, the Fed is expected to report that industrial production picked up by 0.1 percent in June, even with May's increase. Capacity utilization is expected to come in at 74.4 percent, up slightly from May's 74.3 percent.
• Thursday, the Philadelphia Fed is expected to report that its index of manufacturing activity rose to 7 this month from June's 4. Any number above zero represents expansion.
• The University of Michigan's preliminary take on its consumer sentiment index, due out Friday, is expected to come in at 91, up from June's 89.7.