The remarkable thing about the week just ended is how little things changed, despite all the noise we all heard.

The major averages ended Friday largely unchanged. The Dow Jones industrials ($INDU) gained a whopping 9 points, after two days of losses. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index ($INX) and the Nasdaq Composite Index ($COMPX) fell less than a point each.

For the week, the indexes fell -- but not a lot. It was just the sixth weekly loss of the year for the Dow and fifth for the S&P 500 and Nasdaq. In other words, the 2013 rally is very much alive. In spite of all the worries that streaked across the markets: Japan, Europe, rising interest rates and the like.

So here's where things stand, and what next week looks like.

How strong is the market?
With the week's pullbacks -- 0.3% for the Dow and 1.1% each for the S&P 500 and Nasdaq, the major averages are just below their highs set on Tuesday. The Dow is up 16.8% for the year. The S&P 500 is sporting a 15.7% gain and the Nasdaq is up 14.6%.

All of the worry was set off by that huge 7% loss suffered by Japan's Nikkei-225 Index ($JP:N225) on Wednesday. But the Nikkei rallied Friday, up 128 points. For the week, the index was off 3.5%. Not awful, but something you want to repeat often. European markets were off about 2%.

Is the market still vulnerable?
Yes and no. The "yes" stems from the huge gains seen so far this year. They remind many people of 1999; but I still think the year looks like 1987, where the averages surged and surged nearly to the end of August and then blew off. Much as the Japanese market did on Wednesday.

Plus, the market still looks overbought on a short-term basis. The Dow, S&P 500 and Nasdaq are still trading 10% above their 200-day moving averages, signals of some overconfidence.

The "no" comes from the fact there was some solid U.S. economic news this past week.  Existing- and new-home sales both showed gains in April, to levels last seen in 2008.

Jobless claims fell to a seasonally adjusted 340,000 in the last week; part of an admittedly slow recovery but a recovery nonetheless.

Paul Krugman noted in The New York Times on Friday that the number of long-term unemployed -- about 4.5 million -- is four times higher than before the economy began to crumble. But that number is down 36% from its peak in April 2010.

For the record, Apple (AAPL) was up 2.7% to $445.15, thanks in part to CEO Tim Cook's virtuoso defense of the company's tax maneuvering. JPMorgan Chase (JPM) was up 2.6% for the week to $53.66 after shareholders voted down a proposal to make Jamie Dimon CEO only, instead of Chairman and CEO. JPMorgan is up 22% this year. Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) cheered investors with its earnings that showed, among other things, that personal computer sales fell 20%. But the results and guidance were better than expected. The stock ended up 13.8% for the week.

Is there support still for the market?
So far, there are still buyers.

Every time this past week when the market looked like it would slump badly, buyers would step in. The Dow was down 95 points early on Friday and ended the day with a small gain. On Wednesday, the blue chips fell about 276 points during Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke's testimony, but a 122-point loss was trimmed 80 points at the close.

Unless something we don't see falls truly falls apart, there's support... until there's not support. My colleague Anthony Mirhaydari explains why he's still deeply worried.

Want some candidates? The Japanese market is still up 41% after this past week's turmoil. Manufacturing in China looks like it's contracting.

And the Fed could begin to slow its big bond-buying campaign, now at $85 billion a month, but not until fall at the earliest. The 10-year-Treasury yield ended Friday at 2.01%, down slightly from Thursday and up slightly from the previous week's 1.95%.

The week ahead
Even with just four work days next week, there are some important economic reports. The biggest will be the second estimate of first-quarter gross domestic product. The consensus estimate is it will come in at an annualized 2.5%. What everyone wants to see is a number north of 3%.

Pay attention to two reports of consumer confidence. The first comes Tuesday from the Conference Board. The second comes Friday from the University of Michigan. And the market will parse reports on personal income and spending on Friday as well as the monthly Chicago Purchasing Managers Index.

Lastly, the two big earnings reports next week are upscale jeweler Tiffany (TIF) before Tuesday's open and Costco Wholesale (COST) on Thursday. Tiffany has a big exposure to the global economy. Costco is more domestically focused. Tiffany shares are up 32.9% this year; Costco shares are up nearly 16%.

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