Copper rose in New York, halting a four-day decline, as a drop in inventories signaled that supplies are tight for the metal used in pipes and wires. Stockpiles monitored by the London Metal Exchange slid 2.5 percent to 429,550 metric tons today. The inventories have declined for 10 straight sessions and are down 14 percent this month. Supplies tallied by the Shanghai Futures Exchange plunged 34 percent this week to 15,051 tons. The “surprising” decline in Shanghai stocks coupled with the drop in LME inventories “should help support, and so again we are on buying watch,” Alex Heath, the head of industrial- metals trading at RBC Capital Markets in London, said today in a report. Copper futures for July delivery rose 1.45 cents, or 0.7 percent, to $2.0055 a pound at 8:57 a.m. on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange. Before today, the metal fell 9.4 percent this week. On the LME, copper for delivery in three months rose $36, or 0.8 percent, to $4,378 a ton ($1.99 a pound). The price reached a record $8,940 on July 2.

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