By Millie Munshi
Sept. 26 (Bloomberg) -- Copper fell to the lowest price in a week after the U.S. government's $700 billion financial bailout plan faltered and regulators seized lender Washington Mutual Inc., raising concerns that economic growth may stall.
U.S. lawmakers were set to meet again today on the proposed bailout after some House Republicans balked at supporting Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson's plan. Washington Mutual became ``unsound'' once customers withdrew $16.7 billion from accounts in the past 10 days, the Office of Thrift Supervision said late yesterday. Copper has fallen 3.4 percent this week.
``The closing of Washington Mutual and the stalling in Congress of the bailout plan has added yet another layer of fear and nerves,'' Alex Heath, the London-based head of industrial- metals trading at RBC Capital Markets, said today in a report. ``Copper is the industrial metal that almost always best reflects what the market thinks about the economy and may well be doing just that right now.''
Copper futures for December delivery fell 6.65 cents, or 2.1 percent, to $3.068 a pound at 9:28 a.m. on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange. Earlier, the metal touched $3.053, the lowest since Sept. 19.
On the London Metal Exchange, copper for delivery in three months dropped $105, or 1.5 percent, to $6,825 a metric ton ($3.10 a pound). The metal reached a record $8,940 a ton in London on July 2.
To contact the reporter on this story: Millie Munshi in New York at mmunshi@bloomberg.net.
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