NEW YORK, Sept 16 (Reuters) - Cotton futures settled easier
Friday on light follow-through investor selling ahead of the
weekend but the market remains pinned in a trading band and
could stay in this range into next week, brokers said.

The key December cotton contract on ICE Futures U.S.
dropped 1.10 cents to close at $1.1052 per lb, moving from
$1.0941 to $1.1205. The contract fell 2.05 cents on Thursday in
its largest daily fall since Aug. 25.

On the week, the market was down a 1.2 percent from last
week's close at $1.1187.

Total volume traded on Friday hit over 6,800 lots, over 40
percent under the 30-day norm, preliminary Thomson Reuters data
showed.

'We backed up to the low end of the trading range and then
came back,' said independent cotton analyst Mike Stevens in
Mandeville, Louisiana.

The December contract has been trapped between $1.09 and
$1.15 the past few sessions. The weakness was aggravated on
Thursday by a weak U.S. cotton export sales report which showed
more cancellations of U.S. cotton.

The market derived little inspiration from the behavior of
outside markets. Global equities rose for a 4th day running
although jitters remained that Greece will default on its
loans.

The market is keeping close tabs on the cotton demand
outlook for 2012. The outlook outlines China's low-tarifff
import quotas of wheat, rice and corn as well as cotton for
2012, with the National Development and Reform Commission said
Thursday.

Total volume traded Thursday in the cotton market reached
16,415 lots, versus the previous session's count at 14,239
lots, ICE Futures U.S. data showed.

Open interest in the cotton market stood at 155,680 lots of
as of Sept 15, the exchange said.