China’s commodity feast far from over

When a Chinese vase that might be barely a century old fetched $18 million recently at a Sotheby’s auction in New York—obliterating its pre-sale estimate of just $1,000—that was surely based on inflation fears and money printing by the Federal Reserve.

Conversely, when the sale of a much more esteemed ceramics collection failed to live up to the hype Thursday night in Hong Kong, clearly worries about slowing economic growth were to blame, exacerbated by Chinese monetary tightening.