Rally may not sustain

Beware the Ides of March — a brutal stock market rout could slay this bubbly Trump rally starting as early as the first quarter, according to a slew of financial bears.

And the biggest correction in a decade — followed by several painful years of economic contraction — could then welcome the incoming Trump administration, these pessimistic Wall Street pros say.

Despite the Dow scaling record highs last week, Bill Stone, chief investment strategist at PNC Asset Management, says much of Wall Street is unrealistically optimistic on earnings for next year. He is forecasting a mid-single-digit growth rate for the S&P 500.

It is this strengthening US dollar against other currencies — hovering close to parity with the euro, for instance — that’s partly driving the stock market rally, as overseas investors purchase dollardominated stocks with their weakening euros, according to Dan Shaffer, president and chief executive officer of Shaffer Asset Management.

Their goal is to sell the stocks later, profiting on market corrections.

But this party won’t last, says Shaffer. He sees a rash of other bad omens, from weak consumer demand and “falsified” unemployment statistics that disguise much higher numbers of joblessness, to stock prices out of sync with corporate earnings. “It is the widest divergence I have seen since the 1920s,” he said. “In layman’s language, investors should get out of this market.”