NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - The New Year's festivities came to an abrupt halt last week, with the stock market tumbling hard, erasing a good chunk of December's gains in a broad-based selloff.

And the hangover may continue this week, with news expected to remain light.

Alcoa sets the fourth-quarter earnings reporting period in motion Monday, with reports to follow later in the week from Intel, Apple and others. (For a preview of next week's earnings, click here.)

This week's biggest economic reports are on the trade gap in November and retail sales in December. (For a look at next week's economic news, click here.)

But investors are more likely to be influenced by the continuing specter of last year's big rally, and last week's big smackdown.

"We need a spark, I just don't see what there is in next week's numbers that's going to do it," said Donald Selkin, director of research at Joseph Stevens.

"The retail sales should be OK and you get the start of earnings, but not really that many until the week after," he added. "Intel has been beaten up so much, I don't see what they could say that would get the techs going again."

Investors had been cheering the 2-1/2 month rally that propelled the major indexes through the end of 2004. After a mixed first nine months of 2004, the major gauges managed to rally in the fourth quarter of last year, encouraged by the presidential election passing without incident and oil prices finally peaking. The S&P 500 gained more than 9 percent.

Optimism was in place going into the first week of the year -- a time that is usually a strong one for the markets, when inflows into mutual funds are up and so are stocks.

But on Jan. 3, stocks started sliding. And they kept sliding. For the week, the Dow fell 1.7 percent, the S&P 500 fell 2.1 percent and the Nasdaq fell 3.9 percent.

"I think people were reluctant to take profits at the end of last year for tax reasons, so they did it now," said Paul H. Levine, president of Lifetime Financial Strategies.

In addition, market participants were unnerved by the threat of inflation after the Fed released the minutes from the December policy-setting meeting, said Selkin.

Among other concerning indications, the minutes showed that the Fed was more worried about inflation than had been previously thought.

"I think Greenspan set off an alarm," Selkin said. "But the action has been disappointing regardless -- I just don't think the fundamentals justify the selloff we had."

On the upside, the declines were minimal toward the end of last week, suggesting the selling may be done with for the very short term.

"I think that there's been so much selling, that we could see a little bounce early next week," Levine said.

What concerns those who follow the seasonal patterns of the stock market is that weakness in the first week of the year is generally not a good sign for the rest of the month, let alone the rest of the year.

According to the Stock Trader's Almanac, since 1950, when the S&P 500 index rose during the first five days of the year, the index ended up closing out the year higher 85 percent of the time.

When the index fell during the first five days, the market split the difference, ending higher half the time and ending lower half the time.

How that equation plays out this year remains to be seen. However, an up month for the stock market in January would help sway the equation to the positive, according to statistics.

"What we have going in our favor is seasonal factors, because January is usually a pretty decent month for stocks overall," Levine said.

• The November wholesale inventories report, due Monday, is expected to show a rise of 0.8 percent, according to economists surveyed by Briefing.com. Inventories rose 1.1 percent in October.
• The November U.S. trade deficit is due Wednesday. The trade gap is expected to narrow to $53.0 billion from $55.5 billion in October, according to economists' forecasts.
• December retail sales are due from the Commerce Department on Thursday. Sales are expected to have risen 0.7 percent after rising 0.1 percent in November. Sales excluding autos are expected to have risen 0.4 percent after rising 0.5 percent in November.
• Friday brings the read on November business inventories. Inventories are expected to have risen 0.6 percent after rising 0.2 percent in October.
• The read on producer prices (PPI) is also due Friday. PPI is expected to have fallen 0.1 percent in December after rising 0.5 percent in November. The so-called "core" PPI, which excludes volatile food and energy prices, is expected to have risen 0.2 percent in December, just as it did in November.

• On Monday, Alcoa (Research), as is tradition, will be the first Dow component to report earnings. The aluminum producer is expected to have earned 42 cents per share, according to Briefing.com estimates, a nickel more than a year ago.
• Genentech (Research) is also due to report earnings Monday, and is expected to have earned 22 cents per share, up from 14 cents a year ago.
• On Tuesday, Intel (Research) reports its fourth-quarter results after the bell. The chip leader is expected to have earned 31 cents per share, up from 27 cents a year ago.
• Apple Computer (Research) is expected to post earnings of 46 cents per share on Wednesday, up from 16 cents a year ago, thanks in part to sales of its blockbuster iPod.
• Sun Microsystems (Research) released its results after the close Thursday and is expected to have earned a penny per share, after losing 3 cents a year ago.