Wall St week ahead: After decent rally, perhaps time for a pause

NEW YORK (REUTERS) - US stocks could struggle to extend their seven-week winning streak as the quarterly earnings period draws to a close and the market bumps into strong technical resistance.

Many analysts say the market could spend the next few weeks consolidating gains that have lifted the benchmark Standard & Poor's 500 by 6.6 per cent since the start of the year.

The S&P 500 ended up 0.1 per cent for the week, recovering from a late sell-off on Friday after a Bloomberg report about slow February sales at Wal-Mart triggered a slide in the retailer's shares. It was the index's seventh week of gains.

Odds of a pullback are increasing, with the market in slightly overbought territory, said Mr Bruce Zaro, a chief technical strategist at Delta Global Asset Management in Boston.