This week, Wall Street will be focused on hanging onto the big market boost that accompanied the Federal Reserve's surprisingly large cut in interest rates last Tuesday.

Whether or not  stocks can sustain their recent surge will depend greatly on what the week's economic indicators. The Dow Jones industrial average ended last week up 2.8 percent. The last two weeks were the strongest back-to-back gains in the Dow since November 2004.

Attention will turn back to the never-ending housing headache on Tuesday, when August's existing home sales figures are released. Economists expect the number of homes re-sold to edge down to 5.5 million units for the month, from 5.8 million in July.

On Thursday, new home sales and third quarter earnings from KB Home are expected to only reinforce Tuesday's lackluster results.

Shares of KB Home have lost nearly half their value since the beginning of June, and analysts are looking for the major U.S. homebuilder to have shed 0.67 cents a share during the latest quarter.

New home sales are forecast to fall in August to 830,000 units from 870,000 units in July.

Economists expect that construction spending for August, which will be announced on Friday, was down 0.1 percent after a  0.4 percent slide in July.

Consumer confidence figures are likely to suggest that the mood in September has been similar to what it was in August. The Conference Board's confidence index, out Tuesday, is expected to show that confidence has edged down just slightly in September to 104.5 from 105.0 in August. On Friday the University of Michigan will issue its Consumer Sentiment index, which is forecast as up slightly to 84 after an 83.8 reading in August.  

The Commerce Department will release its monthly personal income and consumption report on Friday, which is used as an indicator of future consumer demand. Economists expect the report to say that income grew at a similar rate in August as in July, 0.4 percent and 0.5 percent respectively.

On the world economic landscape, the Clinton Global Initiative's 2007 annual meeting will take place between Wednesday and Friday in New York City. Besides being hosted and organized by former President Bill Clinton, the event's concurrence with the U.N. General Assembly is a major reason why it's able to draw together more than 1,000 major leaders in business, academia, government, and NGOs each year. The three-day working session is designed to help enable productive action on education, energy and climate change, global health and poverty alleviation.

In Washington, the House Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on Commercial and Administrative Law will hold a hearing on the mortgage mess. Its focus will be on finding a way to protect home ownership and provide relief to consumers in financial distress.