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NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) - The stock market rally faces its biggest challenge yet in the coming week, when investors will get hit with reports on holiday sales, the job market, manufacturing, housing and just about every other facet of the economy.

"Next week is big," said Paul Mendelsohn, chief investment strategist at Windham Financial. "You have something coming out almost every day of the week that's important."

"There's the potential for something in the week ahead to miff the markets, but right now there is this enormous amount of optimism," he said. "The attitude is that there's this brief period of time when everything is going well and you've got to get in there and do the best you can before it passes."

That sense of optimism has propelled the market up for five straight weeks, sending the Nasdaq and S&P 500 to 4-1/2 year highs and leaving the Dow near its highest since level mid 2001.

The rally has been sparked by a mix of better economic news, strong earnings and a retreat in oil prices, among other factors.

This past week's advance came with financial markets closed Thursday for Thanksgiving and closed early the day after. Additionally, many Wall Streeters skipped out of work on Friday.

The week ahead promises to be a lot more active. (For next week's key events, click here.)

Friday brought the unofficial start of the key holiday shopping season, and for investors worried about the strength of consumer spending, the early reports on "Black Friday" were encouraging. (Full Story.)

Consumer spending fuels roughly two-thirds of the economy, therefore any signs of weakness tend to unnerve stock investors.

"Everyone will be looking at the holiday sales numbers when they come back Monday," said John Forelli, portfolio manager at Independence Investments. "They'll be looking to see what happened the day after Thanksgiving, but also over the weekend."

Expectations have been low for the key holiday period, despite the recent slide in energy prices, and market analysts said that strong sales figures could give new spark to the five-week-old rally.

In addition, the November payrolls report and comments from outgoing Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan will be relevant.

"Certainly the employment report is key," said John Davidson, president and CEO of PartnerRe Asset Management, adding that most of the reports on tap will be watched closely on Wall Street.

"The data are significant because investors want to know what the underlying resilience is in the U.S. economy," he added. "Can it sustain itself after the hurricanes and in the face of Fed tightening?"

Last week's release of the minutes from the Nov. 1 Fed meeting sparked bets that the central bank's 17-month rate-hiking campaign may be ending soon. Investors will be listening to Greenspan's comments Friday for further evidence of this.

The chairman will give opening remarks at the Philadelphia Fed's meeting, which starts Friday morning.

• Existing home sales, due Monday, are expected to have grown at a 7.20 million unit annual rate in October, according to a consensus of economists surveyed by Briefing.com, down from a 7.28 million rate in September
• Durable goods orders are forecast up 1.5 percent in October after falling 2.4 percent in September. The report from the Census Bureau is due Tuesday
• The November consumer confidence index, due Tuesday, is expected to climb to 90.0 from 85.0 the previous month
• October new home sales, also due Tuesday, are expected to have grown at a 1.2 million rate, down from a 1.222 million in September
• The revised read on third-quarter gross domestic product growth is due Wednesday. GDP is expected to have grown at a 4.1 percent annual rate versus an initial read of 3.8 percent. GDP grew at a 3.3 percent rate in the second quarter.
• The Chicago PMI, a read on manufacturing in the Midwest region, is due Wednesday. The index is expected to have fallen to 60.0 in November from 62.9 in October.
• On Wednesday, the Federal Reserve's "beige book" read on the economy is due. The survey of the Fed's 12 districts is used in the central bank's decisions about short-term interest rates
• Personal income, due Thursday, is expected to have risen 0.5 percent in October after rising 1.7 percent in September; personal spending is expected to have risen 0.2 percent after rising 0.5 percent in September.
• On Friday, the Institute for Supply Management releases its November manufacturing index. The ISM index is expected to have fallen to 58 from 59.1 in October.
• Friday also brings the November employment report. Payrolls are expected to have risen 222,000 in the month after rising 56,000 in October. The unemployment rate, generated by a separate survey, is expected to hold steady at 5.0 percent.