NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - Happy birthday, stock market rally. This week marks your one-year anniversary.

That's quite a milestone. But it's also a problem. Like a pop star who shoots to fame overnight, you're struggling now, trying to put it all in perspective, let alone come up with a second act.

It's been almost a year since "Shock and Awe," and the start of the war in Iraq, March 20, 2003.

Stocks sold off in the first quarter of 2003 as investors bit their nails and waited for news of war. Markets bottomed on the morning of March 12 and then started rising, eventually managing their first year of gains after three years of declines.

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Between the March 12 intraday low and Wednesday's close, the Nasdaq has risen by almost 58 percent, the Dow industrials by nearly 40 percent and the S&P 500 by 43 percent. Practically all of this came from gains in 2003.

"We've gone a full year without a major pullback, which is very impressive, but we've also been stalling for the past six weeks, with the Nasdaq in particular a victim of its past success, because it led the rally in '03," said Bryan Piskorowski, a market analyst at Wachovia Securities.

In fact, after three days of selling so far this week, the Nasdaq and the Dow industrials are now down for the year.

What gives? For one, there is concern that the rally gotten ahead of itself and valuations are once again too lofty for comfort.

"The tone has changed. Valuations, at least in technology stocks -- they led the market out of the doldrums last spring, but they are still overly exuberant," said Greg Drahuschak, first vice president at Janney Montgomery Scott. "They need to be adjusted, there's more of that to come."

Then there is the expected slowdown in corporate profit growth, which is seen becoming really visible in the third and fourth quarters this year. With Intel's scaled-back sales estimate and Wall Street's lukewarm reaction to Texas Instruments' mildly raised guidance, some of this may already be showing. Oracle (ORCL: up $0.08 to $12.49, Research, Estimates)'s fiscal third-quarter results, due out Thursday, could add to or help ease the market's anxiety.

Finally, to many on Wall Street there is the job market that's just not showing signs of the pickup in hiring many economists have been predicting and expecting. When non-farm payrolls grew by only 21,000 in February, against Wall Street's hopeful expectations for 125,000 new jobs, it was the fourth month in a row that job creation came in well short of predictions. The last month new jobs created hit a six figure was February 2001, when the economy saw 104,000 jobs added.

Still, Drahuschak and others are not as concerned with the jobs picture and see the rally picking up again, albeit at a less torrid pace than last year, once the current correction runs its course.

"This is a healthy pullback, and I think the fundamentals remain strong, but I think we're going to see more of this back and forth for the next few weeks," Piskorowski added. "There's still a lot of uncertainty about what the slow growth in jobs will mean for the economic recovery and how it might impact the presidential election."

The one thing the bull has undisputedly going for it is the fact that this is an election year. Regardless of who the candidates are, election years tend to be good for the market. According to the Stock Trader's Almanac, over the last 24 election cycles, in the year of the election, the Dow gained 16 times. (For more on this trend, click here.)

Adding to this is what looks to be a continued low interest rate environment, with the Fed not likely to move rates above a 45-year low at least until the November election is over, if not even later than that, said Donald Selkin, director of research at Joseph Stevens.

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The Stock Trader's Almanac figures show that the S&P 500 has gained in each of the last seven months of an election year 12 times out of the last 13 elections. But that 'last seven months' boon technically shouldn't kick in until June.

Drahuschak expects strength to return to the stock market by the second half of the year, with gains on the Dow in the range of 6 to 7 percent for the year.  

-- with additional reporting by Malina Poshtova Zang