Caterpillar Offers 2,000 Early Retirements; Canada Posts Rare Trade Deficit; RIM Meets 4Q Expectations, Barely; GE Powering Middle East; Dollar Rises Against Yen, Euro; GM Seeks Saab Funding From Sweden; Gold Hits 7-month High; China Injects $19.5 Billion Into Rio Tinto

Anyone, like us, who has suffered the interminable “wait in the hall” hiatus for which Heathrow is so notorious, should just regard it as training for sitting out mining’s major bid.

The base metals were nearly all in the red on Wednesday. Copper tumbled from the pre-dawn hours until about mid-morning, then traded with a slight upward bias to finish at $3.7215/lb., down more than 6¾ cents.

The base metals were all in positive territory on Wednesday. Copper was flat until just before the New York open yesterday, but then it was off to the races for most of the day, with the metal coming barely off its intraday high to finish at $4.0123/lb., up 10 cents.

The global wise men of asset prices and capital flows have weighed in on Aussie house prices. They have been found overvalued. Crikey. Hey, you can’t say we’re being knee-jerk bears on this one.