CLOSE BUT NO CIGAR

See no ’16 Dow 20K

Dow 20,000? Don’t hold your breath.

Wall Street analysts are cooling to the prospect of the blue-chip stock index breaking through the 20,000 mark by the end of the year — as a remarkable Donald Trump rally levels off just short of the muchanticipated plateau.

The Dow Jones industrial average set a string of new highs as it powered to an 8.9 percent gain in the 44 trading days since Election Day.

With few major economic data left to be released this year, market watchers feel the Dow won’t have the energy to power over 20K until 2017.

The Dow fell for the second day in a row on Thursday, closing at 19,918.88 — a turnaround that was practically unthinkable to investors on Tuesday, when the index hit its new all-time high of 19,974.96.

The Dow is up 14.3 percent for the year.

CNBC hyped the Dow’s level all week. Stock traders and Wall Street Journal reporters alike were photographed wearing Dow 20,000 hats.

“We’re running on a dream, the Trump dream, that he’s going to stoke the fires of growth and tax cuts and double GDP,” Chris Rupkey, chief financial economist at Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi, told The Post.

“We’re moving on all talk, but we need to see some action,” he added.

With five trading days left in the year, there’s little economic information that could prod the market to rise above 20,000, Quincy Krosby, strategist at Prudential Financial, said. “

Next week — the last in 2016 — data on home prices, jobless claims, and manufacturing, all of which are important enough to move the market, are expected to be published.

But they will be released against the backdrop of the holidays, when there are fewer Wall Streeters working and able to push the market higher.

“Many managers have locked in their gains for the year, and they’re going to hold steady,” Krosby said.

With fewer traders showing up to work, any negative news — especially related to terrorism — could hit markets harder than it would have otherwise, she said.

One problem with 20,000 is that it’s a psychological threshold, and tepid traders don’t want to cross that line unless it’s justified — for fear that their trades will fall back to earth.

“A lot of times, we get up close to it, and then fall back, wait for more news, a better day to go through,” Rupkey said.

“The market has priced in a game-change,” Krosby said. “Now we’re going to have to see that the game has, in fact, been changed.”