Copper fell from a three-month high after existing home sales unexpectedly declined in the U.S., the world’s largest user after China. Sales of previously owned U.S. homes dropped to a 4.77 million pace, the lowest in seven months, the National Association of Realtors said today. The median projection in a Bloomberg News survey called for a gain to 4.9 million. Builders are the biggest copper users in the U.S. Stockpiles monitored by the London Metal Exchange gained for the fifth time in six days. “The housing data basically stopped the rally for the time being,” Frank Lesh, a trader at FuturePath Trading LLC in Chicago, said in a telephone interview today. “We are starting to see supply building up at the LME.” Copper futures for September delivery fell 2.85 cents, or 0.6 percent, to $4.4395 a pound at 11:58 a.m. on the Comex in New York. Yesterday, the price touched $4.496, the highest since April 11. Before today, the metal dropped 4.1 percent from a record $4.6575 on Feb. 15 on signs of slowing growth in China. On the London Metal Exchange, copper for delivery in three months declined $82, or 0.8 percent, to $9,758 a metric ton ($4.43 a pound). Aluminum, lead, nickel and zinc fell in London. Tin rose. To contact the reporter on this story: Yi Tian in New York at ytian8@bloomberg.net To contact the editor responsible for this story: Steve Stroth at sstroth@bloomberg.net

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