NEW YORK, Sept 1 (Reuters) - Cotton futures ended down
slightly on Thursday on sales by small investors as players
tweaked positions before a long weekend, eyeing the formation
of several storms in or near the growing state of Florida.

The U.S. cotton market is shut on Monday for the Labor Day
holiday.

The key December cotton contract on ICE Futures U.S.
shed 0.03 cent to close at $1.0578 per lb, trading from $1.052
to $1.0723.

Volume came to slightly over 8,800 lots, more than a
quarter below the 30-day average, preliminary Thomson Reuters
data showed.

'We're still trapped between the ranges,' said Keith Brown,
president of commodity firm Keith Brown and Co in Moultrie,
Georgia.

The market is pinned in a wide band from 99 cents to $1.10
a lb and has shown little appetite to break out of that range,
cotton traders said.

Traders said they were closely monitoring the possible
formation of a storm in the Gulf of Mexico but the market has
barely reacted because its impact on fiber contracts is mixed.

Brown said the rains from such a storm would be welcome in
southern Georgia because the area has been hit by a dry spell.

But those same rains would be unwelcome to cotton farms in
Mississippi or Louisiana because cotton bolls are open and rain
would harm fiber quality, he said.

The cotton market will likely drift into the holiday
weekend and wait for more definitive news on the disturbance in
the Gulf, dealers said.

Players will also await the U.S. Agriculture Department's
weekly crop progress report next week to see how much damage
Hurricane Irene inflicted on cotton plants in North and South
Carolina, and Virginia.

Traders said market players then would look toward the
release of the USDA's monthly supply/demand report on Sept. 12
to get a better idea about world and U.S. supply/demand
conditions in the 2011/12 marketing year (August/July).

The level of investor interest in the cotton market hit
147,646 lots as of Aug. 30, exchange data showed.