From Tariffs to Tech Bubbles: What Today’s Market Signals Have in Common With 2018

In 2018, markets were unsettled by a trio of forces: geopolitical pressure, rising interest rates, and mounting doubts about the sustainability of high-growth tech valuations. The U.S.–China trade war dominated headlines. The Federal Reserve raised rates four times. By year-end, the S&P 500 had logged a steep December decline amid rate and trade pressures, while the Nasdaq weakened as FAANG stocks sold off sharply.

Today, many investors are experiencing a sense of déjà vu - though the backdrop is far from identical.

In 2025, equity markets are near record highs, supported by resilient earnings and expectations of eventual rate cuts. Yet familiar fault-lines have re-emerged. Tariff debates have resurfaced — this time tied not only to China but also to Mexico and the broader reshoring debate. AI-led valuations recall the speculative fervor that surrounded social-media and IoT stocks in 2018. And while inflation is hovering around 3%, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland’s November 2025 nowcast^[1], it remains above central-bank targets, keeping real yields elevated and policy uncertainty in focus.

This market environment raises a familiar question: which real assets can hold their footing when shifting market stories—from tariffs to tech bubbles—reshape investor sentiment?

A Look Back: What 2018 Revealed About Investor Behavior

During the final months of 2018, risk aversion returned to global markets. As equities sold off, investors rotated toward perceived safe havens such as gold and U.S. Treasuries, while interest in real assets like real estate and farmland began to rise as a hedge against volatility. Reuters reported that 2018 ended as Wall Street’s worst year in a decade amid trade and rate pressures.

The downturn was sharp: the S&P 500 fell 13.7% in Q4 and ended 2018 down 6.2% for the year, marking its steepest quarterly drop since 2011. By contrast, U.S. farmland investments continued to deliver positive returns, reflecting their historically low correlation with public markets^[2]. The NCREIF Farmland Index reported a gain of about 6.7% for 2018, extending a long-term pattern of steady performance even through broader market stress^[3].

The farmland thesis then, as now, rested not on market momentum, but on durable fundamentals: growing global food demand, limited supply of arable land, and steady income from lease payments and crop sales^[4].

What’s Different — and What’s Not — in 2025

Fast forward to today. While the market’s focus has shifted from social media platforms to generative AI, investor behavior in periods of uncertainty often follows a similar pattern.

Today’s tech rally has seen valuations stretch again, with some AI-related names trading at forward multiples reminiscent of 2021. Yet beneath the surface, concerns are mounting – from sustainability and concentration risk to how renewed tariff pressures could affect input costs, supply chains, and profit margins, with ripple effects extending to agriculture and farmland.

At the same time, traditional diversifiers like fixed income are offering positive real yields for the first time in years — but not without duration risk. This backdrop invites a renewed look at assets that are largely uncorrelated to both equities and bonds.

Enter farmland. In a cycle where the fundamentals are being reevaluated, farmland remains anchored in biological production, long-term demand, and tangible scarcity.

Farmland: A Study in Stability

Unlike assets driven by short-term sentiment or thematic rotation, farmland operates on a different cadence — one rooted in biological production and long-term demand rather than market momentum. U.S. farmland values have historically demonstrated low correlation with public equities and positive real returns in both inflationary and deflationary environments^[5].

Since its inception in 1991, the NCREIF Farmland Index had never posted a negative full-year total return until 2024, when the index recorded an annual decline of –1.0%^[6]. Even in that year, the income component remained positive at +2.5%, partially offsetting a –3.5% decrease in capital values^[7]. This dynamic underscores a defining feature of farmland: its dual engine of value — income and appreciation — with income providing ballast during soft patches in appreciation^[8].

In the decade leading up to 2018, the NCREIF Farmland Index delivered an annualized return of 11.3%, with a standard deviation of just 5.3% — far lower than that of equities or even many core real estate strategies^[9].

What Investors Can Take Away

While history doesn’t repeat, it often rhymes. The parallels between 2018 and 2025 — elevated valuations, tariff pressure, inflation risk, and a maturing rate cycle — offer useful perspective for investors evaluating durable portfolio construction.

Back then, some investors sought shelter in assets underpinned by necessity rather than novelty. Farmland — producing essential goods in a finite resource class — proved resilient. That same value proposition holds today, though it remains largely outside the core portfolios of many accredited investors.

Importantly, this is not a call for timing the market or rotating tactically into farmland. Rather, it’s a reminder that in uncertain environments, diversification into assets with low correlation, income-generating potential, and structural scarcity can offer stability without requiring perfect foresight.

Looking Through The Noise

Market noise can obscure signals, and, as in 2018, today’s headlines may drive short-term volatility. But the fundamentals of real assets, such as farmland, offer a grounded counterpoint — one built not on speculation, but on production, persistence, and long-term demand.