NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- As an extremely strong month draws to a close, stock investors are in a bit of a pickle.

On one hand, there are many reasons to keep the rally going. On the other hand, the rally's been going so long, it might be time to step back.

Strong earnings, low oil prices and the likelihood that the Federal Reserve is done raising rates for now should all keep equities buoyant. But countering that is the reality of the slowing economy and the threat that it poses to corporate earnings.

"The economy is slowing and it will begin to undermine earnings," said Ned Riley, chief investment strategist at Riley Asset Management. "But the market may have already accounted for that and seems to be focused on other things."

Riley said that in the short term, stocks should be able to keep pushing higher, particularly if this week's economic and earnings news proves supportive. (See charts for details).

"We're still in the earnings period, and that will continue to be the main driver in the short term," said Brett Gallagher, head of equities at Julius Baer. "We've had strong results and the market has reacted well, as expected."

However, "technically, we're overdone," Gallagher said, referring to the fact that on a technical market level, stocks are probably due for a retreat - and one that's bigger than Friday's selloff. This tug of war between the strong fundamentals and the likelihood of a pullback could keep markets choppy in the near future, he added.

That was certainly the case last week, where stocks rallied for four days straight, only to do an about-face Friday, after a report showed economic growth in the third quarter slowed far more than expected, due largely to the slowing housing market.

While the selloff no doubt unsettled some investors, it certainly wasn't surprising.

The Dow had hit a record closing high for 13 of 18 sessions before the report was released, so a pullback was not unexpected. Also, the housing market's problems had been in focus all week, in comments from the Federal Reserve Wednesday and a government report Thursday on new home sales that saw the biggest monthly loss in September in more than 35 years.

Yet the GDP report and the stock market's reaction Friday highlighted the fact that the rally is vulnerable, particularly to economic news.

"I do think we'll see a correction, since even in long-term rallies, that's to be expected," said Barry Hyman, equity strategist at EKN Financial Services. "But even if we saw a 10 percent pullback from here, that would still put us above the summer lows, which is a big plus for the long-term trend."

The week ahead brings a slew of potentially market-moving economic reports, starting with Monday's read on personal income and spending and Tuesday's report on consumer confidence.

Clearly, the housing market is slowing fast, and there are worries about how this will affect consumer spending, which fuels two-thirds of the economy. So those early week reports will be key.

Regional and national reports on manufacturing and a national read on factory orders are all due later in the week. But the week's key reading is the October employment report, due Friday.

The payrolls component of the report is expected to improve after September's surprising dip.

Yet, the payrolls report is notoriously hard to predict, with actual results rarely coming in close to economists' forecasts. Therefore a surprise is likely.

However, investors should be careful in how they interpret the report, Riley said. "A bullish number would be misleading," he said. "The real world of business is in the midst of a dramatic slowdown. We're going to see higher unemployment going forward, regardless of what we see in the October report."

The unemployment rate, compiled from separate information, is expected to hold steady. Meanwhile, average hourly earnings, the report's inflation component, is expected to inch higher.

The week ahead brings some comments from Fed officials, including Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond President Jeffrey Lacker on Monday.

Lacker was the only voting member of the Fed's policy committee to vote against a pause and for a quarter-point interest rate hike last week, so his comments will be scrutinized by the market.

Last Wednesday the Federal Reserve opted to keep a key short-term interest rate unchanged at 5.25 percent, as it has for the last two meetings, after raising it 17 times in a row over a more than two-year period.

In the closely watched statement, the bankers said that while the economy is slowing, the pace should pick up going forward. The central bank also said that inflationary pressures remain, but are likely to ease over time.

Any reports that seem to contradict this view could spark that short-term pullback the analysts are concerned about.

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