NEW YORK, Oct 4 (Reuters) - Cotton futures settled firmer
Tuesday on trade and speculative buying as the market staged a
modest rebound although fiber contracts stayed in a trading
band, analysts said.

The key December cotton contract on ICE Futures U.S.
gained 2.66 cents to end at $1.0187 per lb, trading from 98.65
cents to $1.0321. The market has been range-bound from 98 cents
to $1.0321 over the past six sessions.

Total volume traded Tuesday hit almost 19,400 lots, over 50
percent above the 30-day norm, preliminary Thomson Reuters data
showed.

'This appears to be a natural rebound,' said independent
cotton analyst Mike Stevens in Mandeville, Louisiana.

He said the key December cotton contract remains capped by
'layers of resistance' which begins at $1.04 and then up to the
$1.09 a lb level.

Cotton futures effectively shrugged off the negative impact
of global markets, with U.S. stocks flirting with bear market
territory and U.S. crude sliding to a 2011 low as investors
worried over the economic implications of an increasingly
likely Greek default.

Analysts said cotton may have also been encouraged by a
speech of Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke that the
central bank was ready to act further to support the economy.

Traders said mill and commercial buying appears to show up
every time cotton prices would go to the lower end of the range
near 98 cents, basis the December contract.

Open interest in cotton, usually taken as an indicator of
investor exposure in cotton, stood at 150,881 lots as of Oct 3,
from 151,074 lots on Sept 29, the exchange said.

Total volume traded Monday in the cotton market reached
17,773 lots, versus the previous session's count at 18,981
lots, ICE Futures U.S. data showed.