Sept. 27 (Bloomberg) -- Copper fell from a five-month high in New York as traders judged prices were too high given lackluster economic growth. Reports last week signaled the U.S. housing market remains depressed and unemployment may continue to stifle the recovery. Copper needs a driver, such as better economic news, to extend the rally, analysts at Citigroup Inc. said in a report today. “Copper is a little overbought,” said Matt Zeman, a metals trader at LaSalle Futures Group in Chicago. “It’s teetering around the top of the range, so to see a pullback in prices is not surprising.” Copper futures for delivery in December fell 1 cent, or 0.3 percent, to $3.608 a pound at 9:59 a.m. on the Comex in New York. Earlier, the price touched $3.644 a pound, the highest level for a most-active contract since April 12. On the London Metal Exchange, copper for delivery in three months fell $17.50, or 0.2 percent, to $7,927.50 a metric ton ($3.60 a pound). On Sept. 24, the price rose to $7,990. Traders needs to see something “special” before prices will exceed the “historic resistance level” of $8,000 a ton, Citigroup analysts led by Jon Bergtheil in London said. The metal last rose above that price on April 12. “That something special could be some dramatically good economic news,” the analysts said. They assessed the chance of that happening at 25 percent, gave the same odds to a potential “sharp” decline in copper inventories, and put the probability of a weakening of the dollar at 50 percent. “On the balance of these probabilities, then, we believe it is likely that copper will at best ‘pause’ for a while,” Citigroup said. --Editors: Millie Munshi, Patrick McKiernan To contact the reporters on the story: Pham-Duy Nguyen in Seattle at pnguyen@bloomberg.net; Anna Stablum in London at astablum@bloomberg.net. To contact the editor responsible for this story: Steve Stroth at sstroth@bloomberg.net

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