The S&P 500 is acting as though the bank crisis 'never happened.' 'Fast Money' traders urge caution

Published Tue, Mar 21 20236:47 PM EDT

Stocks are rallying despite the recent banking crisis, but " Fast Money " traders urged Wall Street to take a look under the hood — especially ahead of the Federal Reserve's latest rate hiking move on Wednesday. On Tuesday, the S & P 500 jumped 1.3% and closed above the 4,000 threshold for the first time since March 6, making a recovery after the Silicon Valley Bank collapse sent shockwaves across equity markets and raised investor fears of greater financial instability. Those worries eased Tuesday following comments from Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen saying the government will step in if needed to guard the banking sector against further crises. Regional bank stocks surged, and all three of the major indexes notched their second consecutive day of gains. Regardless, "Fast Money" traders were skeptical of the rally, noting the Fed will have to navigate battling higher inflation against a weaker economic outlook. Investors are pricing in the likelihood of a 25 basis point rate hike on Wednesday. The S & P 500 seems to be trading as if the shakeup in the banking sector "never happened," said Guy Adami of Private Advisor Group. "All these different things happen, yet we're right back effectively where we started from, which is fascinating to me," he said. "Because I will tell you, as much as you think these bank problems are over, I don't necessarily think they are." RiskReversal Advisors' Dan Nathan agreed that investors seemed to be overlooking key risks. "If you believe that the stock market is a discounting mechanism, it is not discounting the much higher likelihood of recession in 2023 right now," he said. Still, Nathan pointed to the outperformance in the tech sector as possibly having some moats for investors. The Nasdaq Composite is up 3.5% this month. But others disagreed with that take, saying that the rally in tech stocks might disguise more troubling conditions underneath. "When you look at the market caps of those Nasdaq-100 companies, you would expect that that the S & P would be trending much higher given the performance that they're contributing to that overall index," said investor Bonawyn Eison. "And the fact that we've essentially been range trading with that outperformance, to me, shows that there's something under the surface that's not so positive."